Gulo Gulo
by JBean210
Summary: Logan finds himself in a world of magic and Dark wizards, but his primary interest is just to go home. Now, who does he have to kill to get back there?
1. Who Do I Have to Kill to Get Home?

**Gulo Gulo**

**Chapter One**  
**Who Do I Have to Kill to Get Home?**

First Published October 30, 2009

_**Author's Notes: The first chapter has been updated, so a re-reading is in order if you read this before 10/21/2011.**_

I moved silently through the darkness of the lane, using thickets and trees and the whisper of the evening breeze to cover my approach. On the opposite side of the country road there's a rough-looking hedgerow, rank and overgrown, to all outward appearances. But my nose was telling me that was all a lie.

Further down the lane there's a winding driveway, broken and uneven, with grass growing up through several cracks, leading to a pair of rusty gates set in crumbling stone walls. Beyond it, barely visible in the ever-present fog beyond the gates, is a dilapidated shack. Staring at it, I felt a curious revulsion welling up inside me, as if my guts were trying to tell me this was a bad place to be. But my nose was still telling me that wasn't the truth.

My nose was telling me there were people inside that crumbling, run-down shack. More people, in fact, than could comfortably fit inside, if it was actually as small and disgusting as most of my senses insisted. I usually trust my gut reaction to things, but in this case, I believed my nose. I had to sneak up close, practically up to the gates themselves, before I had caught a whiff of human scent inside the grounds of this apparently long-abandoned property, an oddity here in the county west of London, where land like this would normally have been snapped up in a minute by some wealthy Londoner.

I'd been watching this place for the past few days or so, trying to figure out a way inside, through the magical wards and protections. If my sources were correct — and I had no reason to think they had lied to me, because I can almost always tell when someone's lying — this is where my target was. Or would be.

I made my way back to the country lane at the end of the driveway, positioning myself for a decent view of either direction, and settled in for another long wait. Sooner than later (sooner, I hoped), my target would turn up. By then, I with any luck, I'll have figured out how to get through the gate. If I'm really lucky, I might be able to get to him before he makes it inside. And then…

Well, let's just say that I'm the best there is at what I do.

And what I do isn't very nice.

I was hankering for a smoke, but I might've well set out a sign saying "Attention – covert operative in the bushes." Nothing makes ya wanta do something as much as not being able to do it. Eventually the craving would pass, I knew.

Eventually is a bitch, though.

I sighed. The waiting was gonna drive me crazy, if this joker didn't hurry up and get here. I'd already seen enough weird crap goin' on to set my teeth on edge. I'd watched people coming an' going from this supposedly abandoned place, but it become obvious pretty damn quick that getting in wasn't gonna be a picnic. The second day I was here some guy, dressed in a long back robe and waving around a stick, had suddenly come out of nowhere, making me wonder if he'd caught me napping. But he'd just appeared, as if by — well, magic. He'd walked forward, not breaking stride, with his left arm raised over his head, and _passed right through the gate_, like it wasn't even there. Once he was on the other side I couldn't seem to track him any more.

A few others had come and gone like that, suddenly appearing at the gate and passing through it, then walking out to the lane, where they continued on for some distance before disappearing again. And they all seemed to be carrying those sticks — wands, I'd been told, was what they were. I'd also been told that the men and women were wizards and witches. Sorcerers.

Yeah, I could get my head around that. I was here, in fact, because of some sorcerer with a penchant for being a mother hen. Me an' a few other members of the team were out on assignment and managed to stumble into a firefight between one of the bigger U.S. Government-backed groups and a bunch of real hard-ass bad guys. They were really making things tough — me an' the others were pinned down with nowhere to run. Doc turns to me and says, "Logan, this is no place for your people!"

"Tell me about it, Doc," I grunted. "I'm itchin' to get out an' in the middle of it!" I raised my arms, ready to emphasize that statement more graphically, but at that same moment Doc cast a spell that was probably meant to send me an' the others to safety — except in my case somethin' went haywire.

Sparks exploded all around me, and I felt myself tossed about like a leaf in a windstorm, whipped around and around until I finally landed, face first, on wet ground, the wind knocked outta me for a second. I've been knocked on the head harder, but I could'a sworn I saw Mr. Potato Head staring at me quizzically from a few feet away, out of a hole in the ground.

"Yikes!" the potato man said as he saw my eyes were open, and started to jerk back into the hole, but I reached out a hand and snatched him out of the hole. "Yow! Gerroff me!" it squealed, and bit my finger. I let go automatically, mainly because my only other option was to squish it, and I didn't want to do that just yet. It landed on the ground and bolted for its hole. I watched, bemused for several moments, to see what would happen — I could smell a veritable horde of the little buggers running around beneath me, but they didn't seem dangerous — just curious. About as curious as I was to know where Doc had sent me.

I stood up, shaking mud off me, and looked around to see where I was. I took a tentative sniff, to find out if I was near a city or not, and inhaled the cleanest, most pleasant-smelling air I'd ever breathed. I was inside a fenced area, probably a garden, given the furrows I could see running along the soil, along with a greenish but fresh-smelling pond off in one corner bounded by some old, twisted trees and a hedgerow.

Just past the garden, though — I looked up, up, and still further up at the structure that loomed above me. It didn't look like a house so much as a bunch of boxes piled haphazardly atop one another with a roof thrown onto the top. It must've been five or six stories tall. How it was standing up was beyond me — it should have collapsed the moment it was put together, yet somehow it remained standing.

Just as I'd finished taking all this in, a sensation hit me in the gut I hadn't felt in a long time — _fear_. There was something bad about this place — _run,_ _run, get away_! my brain screamed at me. I shook my head, trying to clear it. There was nothing to be afraid of that I could sense nearby, though my nose told me there were people inside the house in front of me. I gritted my teeth against the feelings telling me to run, hopped the fence and walked slowly toward the door. I stared, uncomprehending, at the items piled next to it — there were several pairs of rubber boots, and an old, tarnished copper cauldron with a hole in one side. The boots I could understand, but a _cauldron_?

The sensation of wanting to run was beginning to subside. I found a half-smoked cigar in one of my pockets and a match; I took it out, lit up, and took a long, deep pull, savoring the taste in my lungs, before knocking. Curtains in the window of the door kept me from seeing anything on the other side, but I was listening carefully for the sounds of anyone moving about. I didn't hear anything, but suddenly the door swung open.

Several things happened at once. A red-headed man faced me across the threshold, pointing a stick at my head, a gesture I took as hostile. "Don't m-move!" the man shouted, but I was already in motion, sidestepping to avoid the stick pointing at me — fortunately, because there was a bang and a flash of red, and the sound of a ricochet. A stick-gun? I grabbed the man's wrist and twisted, locking up his other arm in a half-nelson, and forced him to drop the stick. The man grunted in pain, and I growled, "Take it easy, bub," in his ear. "I ain't gonna hurt you, unless you fight me."

"Who — who are you?" the man asked over his shoulder, looking at me apprehensively. He was a thin, balding fellow who looked utterly incapable of putting up any kind of fight.

"I'm askin' the questions," I snarled. "Where am I?"

The man hesitated. I twisted his arm a bit, for encouragement, and he gasped out, "The — the Burrow!"

"What country?" I snapped.

"Uh — England," he said, staring at me fearfully. His eyes widened suddenly. "You're — you're a Muggle, aren't you?"

I didn't know that word. "No, I'm a mutant," I told him. "One you're better off not messing with, if you know —"

"LET HIM GO!" someone shrieked, from behind me — there was a BANG and something hit me in the middle of the back. I thought for a second I'd been shot, but I couldn't feel any penetration, just a momentary weakening of my muscles. I looked behind me, as did the man.

A short, plump woman, with hair just as red as the man I was holding was pointing a stick similar to his at my back, a wild look in her eyes, now widening in surprise as I stared at her. Whatever had hit me apparently hadn't had the effect she expected. "Oh, dear," she said, frowning and looking at the stick in her hand. "That usually works on everyone except Hagrid."

"Don't do that again," I told her. "Everybody calm down — there's no need for violence."

"That might be more convincing if you would stop twisting my arm, please," the man said, painfully. I let go of him and stepped back, turning so I could keep both of them in view.

"I'm Logan," I said, jerking a thumb at myself. "I was in a — well, a situation — there were some people were giving me an' some friends a pretty hard time, an' Doc Strange decided to take us out of harm's way. Unfortunately, something went haywire and I ended up here, in your garden." I looked at my finger, which had completely healed by this time, then at the woman. "You've got some pretty interestin' potatoes growin' out there, ma'am."

The woman gave the man a sharp look. "Arthur! Didn't you just de-gnome the garden a week ago? What have I told you about —"

"Not now, Molly," the man muttered, then forced a smile at me, embarrassed. "Er — I'm Arthur Weasley," he said at last, then gestured toward the woman. "My wife, Molly," he said, and she gave me a cautious nod of greeting. "This is our home. It's called the Burrow, as I said before. I'm afraid I don't know this 'Doc Strange' fellow you spoke of."

Their body language told me they were cautious but curious about me; the man seemed almost excited that I was in his house. "Not many people know 'im," I shrugged. "Least, not as the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth."

They looked blankly at one another, then at me. "Sorry, but there's no such person, as far as I know," Weasley said, slowly. "We're not supposed to let anyone who's non-magical know about us — obviously, you do, however."

I sighed, then picked up my cigar from where it had fallen on the floor. "Maybe you better fill me in on the situation here," I told them. "I may be further from home than I thought."

=ooo=

It turned out I was. A _lot_ farther. Whatever Strange had intended, he'd thrown me into an entirely different universe, somehow. As Arthur Weasley filled me in, I realized I had fallen out of the frying pan and into the fire.

At first it didn't sound too bad. Here, the magical types kept pretty much to themselves, like most mutants did, back on my Earth — they kept their heads down, avoided being noticed as much as possible, and covered their tracks and cleaned up any leaks that developed in their cover. Unlike some of us, they didn't go out trying to save the world every opportunity they got — in fact, they were pretty timid, compared to some mutants back on my world.

But not everyone here wanted to play by those rules.

Right now there was a private little war going on between two factions of these "wizards," as they called themselves. "Muggles," I found out, were non-magical folk like me — though I was pretty sure they'd never met a Muggle like me before! The rebel faction was called "Death Eaters," and was run by some powerful wizard called "Voldemort" — though neither Weasley nor his wife would say the name aloud, writing it down for me instead, and they made me promise never to say it aloud, either. They preferred to call him "You-Know-Who." I shrugged and went along.

I also gathered, the more Weasley talked, that he and his wife were part of some underground organization fighting this Voldemort, as were other members of their family — they seemed to have quite a few children, I found, looking at the unusual, moving pictures scattered about their home. Their youngest child, a girl named Ginny, was expected home from school the following evening. There was also a boy at home, their son Ronald, Weasley told me, but he was sick with something called "spattergroit" and was kept upstairs. However, when I pointed out that "Ron" did not smell remotely human, but more like some kind of weird monkey, he admitted that the person in the attic was merely their pet ghoul (!) disguised to look like their son, who was really out on a secret mission with his friends, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger.

"So let me get this straight," I said later, sipping on a glass of water in their kitchen. "Your son and these other two kids are taking on this Vo— You-Know-Who character, sorry," I finished, as they both violently flinched. "And your government is trying to find them and kill them?"

"Yes," Weasley said, wearily. "I worked for the Ministry, but I haven't been into work for ages — it became too dangerous."

"So what's the plan?" I said, impatiently. "What're you doing to stop this — this You-Know-Who character?"

"We're doing what we _can_!" Molly, the woman, said fiercely. "Our son Ron's out there doing — doing… well, whatever he, Harry and Hermione are trying to do, to stop You-Know-Who!"

"You don't _know_?" I said, incredulously.

"They wouldn't tell us," Molly said, sounding a bit petulant. "But it _must_ be important, if they felt they had to do it!"

"Why don't you just send in somebody and take out old What's-His-Name directly?" I asked, bluntly.

"It's impossible," Arthur declared emphatically. "He's protected at all times by his followers, and beyond that, he's the most powerful Dark wizard in our history. He was only stopped once before — by Harry Potter."

"What, the kid that's out looking for him now? How'd he do that?"

Weasley shook his head. "No one knows," Molly said. "Harry was only a year old when it happened."

"Great," I snorted. But I never could resist a challenge…

"What if _I_ was to go after this You-Know-Who character," I speculated, folding and unfolding the fingers of my right hand. "If I took him out, maybe we could concentrate on other problems — for example, getting me back home."

"You?" Weasley looked at me, a combination of amazement and awe playing across his face. "You're not even a wizard! What on Earth could _you_ do against him?"

I grinned toothily. "Oh, you'd be surprised what I can do."

=ooo=

The next day, before the Weasleys left to pick up their daughter, who was arriving from her boarding school in the north, we were joined by another visitor, a thin, tired looking man wearing somewhat tattered robes, who introduced himself as Remus Lupin.

"Right, Arthur tells me you'd like to have a go at You-Know-Who," Lupin said, without preamble, after we'd introduced ourselves. He seemed nervous and distracted.

"Yeah," I said slowly, looking at him closely. Something didn't quite jive with this guy — he didn't smell right, in some way. Actually, he smelled _different_, not wrong; not human, but _better_ than human, in some way. I needed to concentrate on the business at hand, though. "I've had some experience at tracking down people who don't want to be found. I'm also good at making sure they won't cause any more problems, once I do."

Lupin's head was bowed. He looked at me from under hooded eyelids. "You-Know-Who is the most powerful Dark wizard of our age."

"So I heard," I shrugged.

"He has boasted that he's made himself immortal," Lupin went on. "There is even a prophecy suggesting that only one person can kill him — Harry Potter, who is out searching for him now."

"I heard that too," I growled, then held up my hands. "You know what they say, bub, about many hands making light work."

"What are your reasons for thinking you can defeat him?" Lupin asked.

"I got six of 'em, for starters," I said, showing him. _Snikt_.

Lupin took an involuntary step backward. Arthur and Molly were staring at my hands in a combination of surprise and horror. "These," I said, showing him my assets, "can cut through anything."

"Quite impressive," Lupin said, faintly, eyeing them warily. "Any other reasons?"

_Snakt_. I jerked a thumb at the Weasleys. "I had Arthur and Molly try some magic on me last night, to see how vulnerable I was."

Lupin turned to Weasley. "What did you find out, Arthur?"

"He's as resistant to Stunners as Hagrid is," he replied. A Stinging Hex made his skin swell for a few moments, but it reverted to normal almost immediately. Other jinxes and hexes worked similarly — he's almost magic-proof."

"Transfiguration?" Lupin asked, raising an eyebrow.

"The same, Remus," Molly spoke up. "Our tests caused him some pain, but we couldn't turn him into anything else. Logan says there's something about his skeleton that might make it repel magic."

"Interesting," Lupin said, chewing his lower lip absently. "It's possible you would stand a chance of getting close enough to inflict some damage on You-Know-Who."

"That's the plan," I said, with a smirk. "So where can I find him?"

Lupin looked at Arthur and Molly, a grim expression on his face, then gestured for us to sit down. I spun a chair around and straddled it backwards, impatient for this milquetoast to give me the information I needed to get things taken care of here, so they could start looking for a way to get me home.

"We aren't sure where he is," Lupin said, finally, and I growled in frustration. "But we _do_ have some ideas," he added hastily, seeing my expression. "We've heard reports he stays at Malfoy Manor, in Wiltshire, on occasion. Lucius Malfoy is part of his inner circle of Death Eaters."

"Not very near," I mused. "But I should be able to get there in a day or so —"

"Oh, don't worry about that," Lupin said with a dismissive wave of one hand. "We can get you there a lot quicker, and provide a way back here if — er, _when_ — you need it."

Well, at least he was bein' honest about what he thought my chances were. I nodded, and we began to hammer out the details.

=ooo=

Four days later, I've been staking out Malfoy's place for half a week now, and I'm beginning to wonder how long this "assignment" was going to take before I found the target, took care of him, and figured out a way to get back home. Nobody on the team has come looking for me yet — not even Doc Strange had tried to find me, it seemed. Either I was more lost than I thought, or nobody had missed me yet. Neither thought was comforting.

It ain't good for me to spend too much time alone, I guess. I tend to brood on things, especially things I can't do anything about, and that pisses me off. I try to come up with something pleasant, and end up thinking about Jubilee. Not good, either.

I glanced at the base of a nearby tree. Between two of the roots, under a layer of sod, there was an empty bottle of some pisswater Arthur Weasley called "butterbeer." It tasted more like butterscotch than beer, but the point was, the bottle was my lifeline back to the Burrow, if I need to get there in a hurry. That was Lupin's answer on how I would get back and forth between Wiltshire and Devon without having to travel cross-country. Lupin called it a "Portkey," but all I knew was, I just touched the bottle and a few seconds later I would be back in the Burrow's backyard. A minute later it would reset, and the next time I touched it, I'd be back on the country road outside the Malfoy place.

The way I felt right now, though, raising an alarm wouldn't be all that bad. At least it would get rid of the boredom I was feeling right now. I shook my head, angry with myself. I couldn't think like that! I had to stay focused on the plan.

I just wish I had one.

I still hadn't figured out how I was going to get onto the grounds. In the last four days, I'd seen a few more people come and go, none of them looking like my target. A few of them had to ask permission to enter the gate; I watched as the black metal twisted itself into a fearsome-looking face, demanding to know why they wanted in. Most of them seemed to be messengers or couriers for the Malfoy family.

Finally, it was early in the morning, not long after midnight. Everyone in the house would be asleep by now, though this far from the gate I would never be able to hear any conversation coming from the manor — the magical protection spells Weasley and Lupin had told me about would keep any such sounds from reaching me. Likewise, my vision was being deceived by those same spells.

Too bad none of these wizards had thought about _smells_.

But even _my_ nose wasn't gonna tell me whether anyone inside the house was awake or not. I stifled a yawn; deciding to give it a few more hours before I headed back to the Burrow and one of Molly's grand-slam breakfasts, then an hour or two of shut-eye and I'd be back here, keeping —

Suddenly there were several soft _cracks_ some distance down the lane, and I went on hyper-alert. Nearly a dozen people had suddenly appeared, all at once. That was the biggest group that had ever shown up here at one time. Could one of them be my target?

I watched from the bushes, keeping absolutely quiet as I watched the group come into view. It looked like luck still wasn't on my side — there were half-a-dozen men, all roughly dressed, including a big, rangy-looking guy who seemed to be the one in charge. He was carrying a long, silver sword, I saw, and my eyes narrowed. If I needed to take them out, he'd be the one I'd go for first.

As they drew closer, I saw that part of the group was bound together. _That_ was interesting! There were five people, from a tall, black kid to what looked like a really _ugly_ little boy. Including, I saw, one girl, _and_ a boy with long, red hair. Just like Molly and Arthur Weasley…

If that redhead was their son — _Ron_ had been his name, I remembered — and he was supposed to be with this Harry Potter kid, whom Lupin had told me Voldemort was aggressively searching for throughout Britain, then this could just the break I was looking for.

Now, if I could just find a way to get inside the gate with them!

One of the men, walking ahead of the group as they forced their bound prisoners to shuffle their way up the driveway, rattled the gates, looking back toward the tall, rangy leader. "How do we get in? They're locked, Greyback, I can't — blimey!"

The man leaped back in fear as the gate did its guardian thing.

"We got Potter!" the one called Greyback shouted back at it. "We've captured Harry Potter!"

The face disappeared and the gate swung open. This might be the only chance I'd get to slip onto the grounds. I darted across the road and into the black shadows of the hedge running alongside the driveway, given time by the slow shuffle of the prisoners. The men at the rear of the group seemed anxious to get through the gate, as if afraid it might snap shut on them, but I knew it took a few seconds to swing closed, once someone had passed through. The men disappeared from view as they passed through the gate; I would have to chance that none of them would look back once they were inside. I couldn't be sure of what cover I'd have once I was inside the gate — the protection spells made everything beyond it blurry and indistinct, as if shrouded in fog.

I was a dozen feet away when the gate started to close. I would have to chance it. I broke from the shadows, sprinting toward my rapidly-disappearing opportunity, and lunged through the gate just as it clanged shut.

My momentum and a bit of luck carried me toward a hedge, and I disappeared behind it just as the leader, Greyback, turned around and snapped at his men, "Hurry up, keep together! Get them moving!"

Once inside, I found, the grayness and fog I had trouble seeing through from outside the gates had disappeared. There was a path leading up to the main house, now revealed to be an opulent mansion instead of the crumbling shack I had perceived from outside. High hedges lined either side of the walk, and I could see and hear birds moving about nearby. In the dim moonlight they were revealed as albino peacocks. Interesting, but my main concern was in following the group and finding a way into the house. If I could get inside, I planned on scoping out a hiding place to settle down and wait for this Voldemort character to appear, which I expected I could count on if one of the prisoners was this Harry Potter kid that Voldy supposedly wanted. After he appeared, I'd kill him, free the prisoners and escape back to the Burrow using the pisswater bottle.

Simple, right?

A light had suddenly shone on them, and the men had stopped at the bottom of a set of stone steps leading up to the entrance. A woman's cold voice spoke from somewhere. "What is this?"

The one called Greyback stepped forward eagerly. "We're here to see He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!" he said, his voice rasping and filled with both excitement and fear.

"Who are you?" the woman's cold voice asked.

I could hear the indignation and resentment in Greyback's voice. "You know me! Fenrir Greyback! We've caught Harry Potter!" He reached around and caught one of the bound boys by the hair, forcing them to turn round so he faced frontward. He pulled the boy's hair back, forcing his face upward.

A tall, slender blond woman had stepped outside, a wand in her hand. She was beautiful, but with an icy coldness in her eyes that gave her a hardened, bitter look. She was looking at the face of the boy Greyback was forcing toward her. She appeared unconvinced by his statement.

"I know 'e's swollen, ma'am, but it's him!" one of the others said, seeing her hesitation. He must have been Greyback's second in command, from the way he spoke. He pointed at the boy's forehead. "If you look a bit closer, you'll see 'is scar." His finger jerked toward the one girl in the group. "And this 'ere, see the girl? The Mudblood who's been traveling around with 'im, ma'am. There's no doubt it's 'im, and we've got 'is wand as well! 'Ere, ma'am —"

The man produced another wand from his pocket, holding it up to the woman, who looked at it, still unconvinced. Nevertheless, she stepped back toward the door to the manor, gesturing for them to accompany her. "Bring them in." The other men roughly forced the prisoners to ascend the steps, and they all disappeared inside.

I approached the door slowly, not planning to repeat my last-ditch lunge from earlier; I hoped this door would not have magic on it preventing my entrance, if entry to the grounds itself was so difficult. I could hear the echoing footsteps moving further from the door, and the woman's cold voice once again. "My son, Draco, is home for his Easter holidays. If that is Harry Potter, he will know."

The voices disappeared into another room near the other end of the manor, and I slipped inside, finding myself in a long hallway lined with portraits.

Not good. Not good at all.

Lupin had told me how some wizarding families used family portraits to provide secondary security inside the home. While staying with Arthur and Molly, I found out that people in magical pictures can move and speak, even though they aren't living beings. If any of the portraits in this hallway saw me, they could go running to the owners of the house, alerting them to my presence and pretty much ruining my chances of staying here any length of time. And I _so_ wanted the chance to shake hands with Voldemort before I left…

Fortunately, the hallway was dark, and I had been quiet; none of the pictures on the wall seemed to have noticed my presence. Candlelight flickering at the other end of the hall suggested the group had gone into a room on the left, so I slipped through a nearby door on the left and found myself in a darkened parlor. I went to the far corner; if this house was like many old residences owned by rich, influential families such as the Malfoys were supposed to be, there were liable to be secret passages.

Moving slowly along the wall, I felt carefully for any sign of an opening. I was in luck — there was a very slight breeze coming from underneath a section of the wall! I pressed inward on the panel.

It wouldn't budge. I suppressed a growl of frustration. This would be the magical protections working against me. I pressed harder against the panel, and it moved inward with a soft _crack_.

A door opened across the hall. I froze, watching the light under the doorway as someone stepped through and into the hall, then paused. Probably listening, just as I was. Voices at the other end of the hall, muffled by distance and walls, suddenly rose in volume. "But then, that's the Weasley boy!" a man's voice shouted, and the shadow on the floor moved away, toward them. I slipped into the passageway, pushing the panel closed behind me.

It was dark in the passageway — not surprising, since I'd learned they could make light with their wands. I wasn't so lucky, but I still made my way toward the back of the manor, moving slowly as I felt for loose and creaking floorboards. I could hear noises coming from different directions around me, people speaking and other things, like bodies falling, but I had to concentrate on what I was doing, until I could hear voices clearly again. There was a sliver of light marking the edge of the hidden exit to the passageway; not much to see, but I could tell from the smells that some of those who'd come into the house weren't in the room anymore. A woman's voice, different than before, harsher, spoke loudly. "How did you get into my vault? Did that dirty little goblin in the cellar help you?"

"We only met him tonight!" a young woman's voice replied, terrified and sobbing. "We've never been inside your vault… It isn't the real sword! It's a copy, just a copy!"

"A copy? Oh, a likely story!" the first woman screeched. I angled for a better view and saw a dark-haired woman, posed as if teaching a class, her wand before her like a teacher's pointer.

The man I'd heard before said, "But we can find out easily! Draco, fetch the goblin, he can tell us whether the sword is real or not!" I heard Draco leave the room. Based on other noises I'd been hearing, the cellar was directly below this room, though there was nothing but silence below me at the moment.

No one in the room moved until Draco returned with the goblin, and I realized this was the "ugly little boy" I'd seen earlier, bound with the others. Draco marched it up to the dark-haired woman, who glared at it. The young woman, who'd evidently been tortured (though I smelled no blood spilled from her), was lying still at the dark-haired woman's feet.

"You can tell whether a sword is goblin-made or not, can't you?" she demanded.

"Of course," the goblin said. Its voice was high and raspy.

"This sword," the woman said, hefting the silver sword I'd seen Greyback holding outside the gate, "is the Sword of Gryffindor, forged a thousand years ago by your kind. It should be inside my vault at Gringotts, but instead I found it in the hands of Harry Potter and his friends.

"If this is the real sword," she went on, "then my vault has been looted and your kind have failed to protect it. If it has, then the thieves will be found and severely punished." She placed the sword on the floor in front of the ugly little being, then stepped back. "Tell me if it's the real sword or not."

There was a noise from below. "What was that?" the man, apparently Draco's father, said loudly. "Did you hear that? What was that noise in the cellar? Draco — no, call Wormtail! Make him go and check!" I heard Draco leave once again, and attention turned back to the center of the room.

The goblin reached down, picking the sword up from the floor, then began examining it closely, as the dark-haired woman kept her wand pointed in its direction. The girl on the floor stirred at last, looking up at the goblin, and sobbed, "Don't — don't —"

"_Crucio_!" the woman whirled and pointed her wand down at the girl, who screamed horribly. _That_ explained how they were torturing her — some kind of magic spell that caused pain. The goblin looked up for a moment, staring at the girl, then went back to examining the sword. He seemed to be taking a long time to determine whether it was real or not, for the woman finally said, "Well? Is it the true sword?"

I'd sensed the approach of two others just before this — they were just outside the room, in the hallway beyond. I suspected they'd been in the cellar below.

"No," the goblin said at last. "It is a fake."

"Are you sure?" the woman demanded. "Quite sure?"

"Yes," said the little being.

"Good," the woman said, relief in her voice. She flicked her wand and a cut appeared across the goblin's face. It cried out and fell to the floor, dropping the silver sword — it clanged loudly as it hit the floor. She kicked the goblin out of her way. "And _now_ we call the Dark Lord!" She threw back her left sleeve and pressed a finger to her forearm.

From my pre-stakeout discussions with Lupin, I knew that what she'd just done was send a summons to Voldy. He would be here anywhere from seconds to a few hours, depending on how far away he was at the moment, and how quickly he responded. If he believed they were calling him for something important, he would probably come as quickly as he could.

She turned to Greyback. "And I think we can dispose of the Mudblood. Greyback, take her if you want her."

_Dammit_! From the feral gleam I'd seen in Greyback's eyes, earlier, it was clear he had something other than assault or rape in mind. I wasn't gonna let that happen. I burst from the secret passageway into the room. The dark-haired woman and a tall man with long, blond hair spun around toward me. The man, who was directly between me and the woman, swung a long, black-handled cane at my head. I caught it in one hand, cuffing him with the other, and he dropped to the floor.

"_Stupefy_!" the woman sent a red bolt of magic at me, catching me in the chest and making me grimace. At the same time, behind her, the two young men I'd sensed outside the room burst in, one (the red-head, I saw) shouting at the top of his lungs, the other silent, but armed with a wand.

"_Expelliarmus_!" the second young man shouted, and the woman's wand leapt from her hand. The youth reached up, snatching it from the air as it flew to him, at the same time handing his original wand to the red-headed kid. At the same time, I saw Greyback's wand come to bear on me, and I went into a crouch, rolling to one side as he fired at me. The other woman, the blond-haired one, and a third youth, a blond-haired boy who was probably Draco, shot spells at the other two boys, who dodged them by dropping behind a sofa. I came up behind a chair, ready to push it toward Greyback and leap after it onto him.

"STOP OR SHE DIES!"

The black-haired woman had dragged the semi-conscious girl on the floor to her feet and was holding a dagger to her throat. "Drop your wands," she said, her voice a husky whisper. "Drop them, or we'll see exactly how filthy her blood is!"

Greyback had stopped to watch, as had the blond woman and her son. I was watching, as well — watching the eyes of the two boys, to see what they would do, afraid that they might be too foolhardy to surrender. "I said drop them!" the woman said again, pressing the dagger against the girl's throat. I could see, and smell, the small drops of blood appearing on the blade.

"All right!" the black-haired boy shouted; he and his partner dropped their wands, raising their arms to shoulder height.

"Good!" the woman smiled cruelly. "Draco, pick them up!" She looked at Greyback, nodding toward me. "Take that filthy Muggle — I want to know how it got in here!" She turned back to the dark-haired boy. "The Dark Lord is coming, Harry Potter! Your death approaches!"

I threw the small wood slat I'd taken from the passageway at the woman's head, kicking the chair in front of me toward Greyback at the same moment. The slat caught the woman a glancing blow, but she shifted so the girl was between us as I moved toward her. Greyback had knocked the chair aside and was pointing his wand at me as well.

"You're quite a handful for such a _little_ Muggle, aren't you?" the woman sneered. She glanced at the blond woman. "Cissy, I think we should tie up all these little heroes again, and Greyback can take care of Miss Mudblood. I'm sure the Dark Lord won't begrudge you the girl, Greyback, after what you've done tonight…"

At her last word, though, I heard a creak sound from above, then a grinding noise. Everyone in the room looked up in time to see the crystal chandelier above the woman, the girl and the goblin begin to fall. The woman screamed and threw herself out of the way, even as I leaped forward beneath it, to keep it from crushing the girl and the goblin.

I braced my feet as it came down, catching its frame and taking most of the weight onto my back as it fell. It was damned heavy, and some of the crystal edges cut into my back and arms. "Bloody hell!" the red-head exclaimed, as I hoisted it into the air, launching it toward Greyback, who cursed and dodged out of the way.

As the red-head ran toward me, scooping up the girl, the black-haired boy leaped toward the blond youth, who was staring at me, mouth agape, and grabbed the three wands from his hand, then slugged him in the face. The blond went down, his mouth bloody, and the black-haired youth spun toward Greyback, pointing all three wands and shouting "_Stupefy_!"

But Greyback, though a large man, managed to dodge the three red bolts that shot at him. I turned, ready to take him on, and saw there was yet another combatant in the room. But this one was the weirdest arrival yet!

A tiny humanoid, similar to the goblin but even smaller, had trotted into the room from the hallway. His head seemed too large for his body, and he had large ears and shining eyes that were all out of proportion. Those eyes now looked fearfully about the room. The little being was terrified to be here — I could smell the stink of it on him.

"Dobby!" the blond woman screamed, and everyone in the room froze, even the dark-haired woman. "You! _You_ dropped the chandelier!"

The creature called Dobby nodded once. "You must not hurt Harry Potter," it replied in a high, squeaky voice.

The dark-haired boy was already in pain, I could tell — he was clutching at his forehead. I moved forward, between them and the dark-haired woman. "If you've got a way out of here, hurry up and take it!" I told them.

"Ron — here! Now GO!" the dark-haired boy tossed one of the wands to the red-head, who grabbed it and disappeared with the brown-haired girl clutched in one arm. Potter, the dark-haired kid, had taken Dobby's hand then looked at me, squinting painfully, and held out a hand. "Come with us!"

I shook my head. "I got some unfinished business to attend to, kid. Go on. GO!"

Dobby and Potter disappeared just as something slammed into my chest. I looked down. The silver dagger the dark-haired woman had used to threaten the girl was protruding from my chest. She leered triumphantly at me, but her expression turned to shock as I reached up and drew the blade from my chest. "Nice throw," I told her, dryly.

I was considering sending it back her way when Greyback growled and drew a blade of his own from a sheath on his belt. "If I can't have the Mudblood," he growled at me, "at least you'll be more filling."

The hole in my chest was already beginning to close, but from the way he was moving toward me Greyback wasn't going to give me any more time to heal. Good — I like a challenge. "Bub," I growled, dropping into a knife-fight stance. "You want a piece of me? Come an' take it." From the corner of my eye I saw a blond blur hurtle from the room — the kid had run away. The two women, whom I could now tell were sisters, both stayed to watch.

We circled for a few seconds. He was a big man — my head only came up to somewhere around his chin — and his reach was longer than mine. Now that I had a chance to smell him up close, under the odor of dirt, sweat and human blood, there was a more familiar scent, one I'd sniffed recently — Lupin! What I'd smelled in him was a part of this big, ugly galoot as well. And the scent — I should've placed it before, but I was too distracted 'til now. Both Lupin and this Greyback had the smell of wolf about them. In a magical society, it wasn't hard to guess what that meant — both of them were werewolves.

Greyback's dagger thrust forward. I blocked it, and he drew the blade across my forearm. Blood filled the cut in my arm. His knife was bigger than the one I had, which seemed better suited for cooking than combat.

But I had a _lot_ of experience with knives. I jabbed back, keeping him at bay, though the smell of my wound was filling him with blood-lust. He would probably scream and leap at me any moment now. It would be none too soon, either — I had to take this joker out quickly, if I was going to be ready for that Voldemort character when he showed up.

The sudden sound of running feet coming closer caught my attention, and Greyback stepped back, leering at me. "Too late now, little man," he rasped, as five men piled into the room, wands pointing wildly at everyone there, including the two women.

"OI!" the first man, Greyback's lieutenant as I remembered, shouted, pointing his wand at the dark-haired woman. "Firs' yeh knock us out, then yeh send that blond to wake us up and _help you_? We'll 'ave no more of _that_ behavior, thank you very much!" He stopped, confused, seeing me. "Who the bloody 'ell are _you_?"

"Never mind who he is, Scabior," Greyback snarled, pointing his dagger at me. "He's a Muggle that got into the house somehow! Take him out!"

I snarled and started for him, intent on taking him out first, but several red bolts slammed into me, knocking me back. They _stung_. My knife clattered to the floor, and I fell back against a wall, knocking a hole in it, momentarily disoriented. Rough hands grabbed me, pulling me free of the broken paneling and forcing me upright.

Not a good idea on their part, getting that close. I put my elbows hard into the solar plexus of both guys who'd grabbed my arms. They doubled over as the two in front of them thrust their wands at me. I crossed my arms, grabbing their wrists, and pulled them into each other. As they stood there momentarily dazed, I gave each of them a head butt for good measure, and they both went down. Four opponents disabled in five seconds.

The guy Greyback had called Scabior backed away, aiming his wand at me as he did so. "_Stupefy_!" he yelled, and another red bolt hit me in the chest as I slammed my fist into his face, knocking him out. Five opponents, ten seconds. I look around for Greyback again. He was standing back, pointing a wand at me, and I leapt at him.

"_Levicorpus_!" Greyback roared, and suddenly my legs were yanked out from under me. The next thing I knew, I was dangling upside-down in the middle of the room. Neither the Weasleys nor Lupin had tried a spell like _this_ on me. I tried to twist around and cut whatever was holding me, but there was nothing but air around my legs. Unless this spell dissipated like the others, I was helpless.

At least, for the moment.

"Finally," Greyback panted, giving the women a triumphant leer. He walked over to the dark haired woman. "I think the Dark Lord will be interested to meet this one, Madam Lestrange, even if we lost Harry Potter."

In reply, she slapped him across the mouth. I smirked in spite of my predicament. "Greyback, you fool!" she hissed. "The Dark Lord cares less than nothing for Muggles, even ones who manage to break into our home!" Her eyes were wide with fear as the big werewolf stepped back, rubbing his face resentfully where she'd slapped him. "Perhaps you'd care to explain to our Lord, when he arrives, how you let Potter slip through your fingers!" she snapped at him.

"That was _your_ doing," Greyback growled. "Don't try to hang that —"

There was a loud _CRACK_ and a whirl of green smoke in the middle of the room, and everyone present moved back quickly, looks of apprehension and fear coming over their faces. Even though it was magic, it seemed like a cheap parlor trick to me. This must be our boy, I thought — Voldemort himself.

A tall, almost skeletally-thin figure emerged from the smoke, which dissipated almost immediately. For a second I thought someone had enlarged that stupid lizard from those insurance commercials — that's what this guy looked like, a great big lizard, with red eyes, no nose and a thin, lipless mouth. He was looking around the room, as if expecting to see someone who wasn't there, and finally turned to the black-haired woman. "Bellatrix," he said, in a high but clear voice, tinged with growing irritation. "Where is Potter? I told you not to summon me unless you had him! I do not see him here."

"My lord," the woman said, and I could practically taste the fear radiating from every pore of her body, she was so frightened by his appearance, now that the boy he wanted was no longer in their clutches. "He was here, but — but _HE_ invaded our house and allowed him to escape!" she shrieked the last, pointing at me, her eyes wild.

The lizard guy — Voldemort — turned toward me. "_He_ did?" he said, sounding almost amused. "This —" he waved the wand in his hand casually at me "— this _Muggle_ forced you to lose Potter, after you had him here?" He looked back at the woman. "Bella, Bella, is that _really_ the explanation you want to give me for failing to produce Potter, after I _warned_ you of the consequences for disturbing me needlessly?"

"My lord," Bellatrix said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I — I cannot lie to you…"

"Nor should you," Voldemort interrupted, coldly. "You know I do not care for liars. He turned back to me. "Speak, Muggle — tell me who you are."

"Go to hell," I said, dismissively, hoping to piss him off.

It worked. "_Crucio_!" the man said, and suddenly I was in agony, pain blazing through every nerve in my body like liquid fire. I grunted, clenching my jaw so I wouldn't howl with the pain of it. It was worse than anything I could remember, an' all I could do was hang there and take it.

After some interminable time that might have been seconds, or hours, the pain stopped. "I will not ask again, Muggle," Voldemort said, softly. "Tell me who you are."

"Logan," I said, finally, through my teeth. "Call me Logan."

"Logan," Snake-man repeated, his lipless mouth curling into a humorless smile. "Why did you come here, Logan? Did you come to save the Potter boy?"

"I never saw the kid before tonight," I said, shaking my head. "I'm not here for him."

"Then what are you doing here?"  
"I'm here to kill _you_, snake-face." Both the women gasped, but Voldemort merely continued smiling.

"Interesting," he said, looking at the black-haired woman Bellatrix. "The Muggle harbors an interesting delusion, believing he could actually kill me. Tell me, Muggle," he went on conversationally. "How did you even gain entrance to these grounds? You shouldn't even be able to see this manor, much less break into it, through all of the protections and wards I've erected."

"Wolf-man helped me out some," I replied, nodding upside-down toward Greyback, and the large, rangy werewolf turned to Voldemort with a gasp of surprise.

"My lord!" he said quickly. "I gave him no such help! We did not even know he was around when Madam Malfoy allowed us onto the grounds!"

"So he tricked you, then," Voldemort surmised, and Greyback looked down in shame. The action seemed to infuriate the tall, snake-like wizard. "He tricked all of you — and you LOST HARRY POTTER!" He pointed his wand at me again. "_CRUCIO_!"

Pain exploded through me again, even worse than before. I guess it was more convenient for Snake-boy to punish me than anyone who was actually responsible for losing Potter, at least at the moment. I held in the howls for a long time, but eventually they were torn from my throat, and I thrashed wildly, trying to escape the pain.

Something solid slammed into me, and I realized that the spell holding me in the air had broken, dropping me to the floor. I couldn't move — as good as my healing factor was, it would be several seconds before the pain and fatigue poisons were cleared from my body. I hoped I would have time to recover before he hit me with that spell again.

Voldemort had dropped his wand and was speaking to the werewolf and the women. "— _quite_ displeased at not finding Harry Potter here, Bellatrix. When I have finished with this Muggle, I will require penance from you, and Lucius as well. Where are your wands?"

"Potter — Potter took mine," Bellatrix replied, reluctantly. "And Draco's."

"Potter _disarmed_ you, Bella?" The sound of disdain Voldemort made caused Bellatrix to visibly wilt, trembling with rage and self-loathing. "Perhaps you've been punished enough…" he turned away from her.

"No!" Bellatrix shouted. "My lord — _my lord_ — punish me as you see fit, but do not turn away from me!" she pleaded. "I will take my revenge on the Potter boy —"

"Don't presume such favors, Bellatrix," Voldemort cut her off, menacingly. "_I_ will say whether you're allowed such a privilege, and it will take much to redeem you in —"

There was a _crack_ in the middle of the room, and suddenly — _amazingly_ — the boy they were talking about, this Harry Potter kid, was in the room again, his wand extended toward Voldemort. "_Expelliarmus_!" he shouted, and the wand flew from the snakelike wizard's long, thin hand into a far corner of the room. Every face in the room was frozen in shock — even mine, for a bare moment.

Then I moved, as Voldemort shouted "_Potter_!" and the werewolf growled and leaped at the boy. I jumped as well, intercepting him, and we were ripping and tearing at each other even before we hit the floor, knocking furniture over as Greyback tried to rip out my throat.

It was time for me to cut loose. I drove my fist under his short ribs and popped my claws at the same moment, feeling them sink deep into his vitals, then ripped upward, shredding his ribcage, lungs and heart.

The kid, Potter, was reaching for me, hand extended. "Quick! Take my hand!" he shouted, and I moved toward him, but not to take his hand — I vaulted over him and deflected the blow aimed at him by Bellatrix, who had snatched up the silver sword from the floor and swung it at him. I threw up my left arm to catch the blade, trusting my adamantium skeleton to stop it. In the background I heard Voldemort roar "Draco! _Wand_!"

The sword edge bit into my arm, and pain seared through the wound, a lot more than I expected. I misjudged the blow I'd aimed at the woman's torso. Instead of slicing open her chest I cut off her sword-arm — it dropped to the floor in three pieces, and she fell as well, screaming in agony.

"Let's GO!" Harry shouted again, reaching for my hand. His eyes were wide with fear and revulsion at what he'd just witnessed, but I saw that he had also grabbed the silver sword from her dismembered hand. Another motion caught my eye at the same moment: a wand spinning through the air toward Voldemort. I caught a glimpse of the blond-haired boy, Draco, in the corner where Voldemort's wand had fallen — he had thrown it toward him.

The Potter kid was between me and Voldemort, who caught the wand and was pointing it toward Potter. "_Avada_ —"

Whatever _that_ spell was, I couldn't stop it in time, but I could keep it from hitting the kid. I retracted the claws in my right hand, scooping him up with that arm and spinning around so my back was to Voldemort as he completed the spell "— _Kedavra_!" I extended my other arm, claws still extended, letting the momentum of my spin carry me toward Snake-man, trusting my instincts and aim. Something slammed hard into my back and everything went black.

=ooo=

I don't know how long I was out. My healing factor has saved me a lot of times — I've been nearly disemboweled, had my skin shredded or burned over nearly my entire body; I've even survived having Magneto pull all of the adamantium out of my skeleton. That may have hurt even more than the _Crucio_ spell Voldemort used on me. But whatever that last spell was, it threw my healing factor for a helluva loop.

I _hurt_. It didn't matter that I was lying in what felt like a comfortable feather bed, my body was finding every uncomfortable spot in it. I opened my eyes slowly, seeing a young, blonde woman bustling about the room, dusting. I could tell she was dusting because I was smelling every particle she kicked up or shook out of her dust rag.

There was also another smell in the room, an intoxicating fragrance that seemed to be coming directly from her. Pheromones. I sniffed again. Pleasant, but she also had another man's scent on her. I knew all too well what kind of problems that entailed, so I filed her scent away under _Not Interested_.

She glanced my way, then jumped when she saw my eyes were open. "Ah, you're awake!" she said, smiling at me. Her voice had a noticeable French accent. "I weel go and tell my husband and 'is friends." She started to leave the room.

"Wait," I said, and she stopped. I pushed myself up, painfully, to a half-sitting position. "Where am I?"

"You are at our 'ome, Shell Cottage," she made a small curtsey. "I am Fleur Weasley. My husband Bill and I live 'ere."

"Where's the kid that came back for me?" I asked, grunting in pain as I tried to sit up more.

"Harry?" Fleur said. ""E is 'ere, too — he 'as been waiting for you to wake up, to talk to you."

I finally got my torso upright; I rolled my neck, loosening the muscles in my shoulders. "How long've I been out?"

"You were brought 'ere two days ago," the woman told me, now gazing at me in undisguised interest. "It seemed as if you wair dead. 'Arry even considered burying you, until we detected your 'eart beating every minute or zo. The last time I checked, yesterday evening, it was beating about 50 times per minute."

That was about my normal heart rate. I nodded. "Can I talk to Potter now?" I asked.

She blinked; I got the impression she was miffed at being dismissed. But I had to find out what had happened after I blacked out — whether I managed to take Voldemort out or not. "I weel go an' get 'im," she sniffed, and left the room, muttering about the rudeness of goblins and Muggles.

A few minutes later the door opened again, and the Potter kid and his two friends, the brown-haired girl and the tall, red-headed boy, all entered the room. They each pulled up chairs, though I hadn't really noticed them before — I was going to have to get my edge back, and soon, it looked like a couple of those chairs materialized out of nowhere! — and sat down next to me, with Harry closest to me, then the girl, Hermione, and the redhead, Ron.

"Thanks for pulling me out of there," I said abruptly, before Potter had a chance to speak. He nodded automatically, and the other two were smiling at him.

"I thought I should come back," Potter said, earnestly, and I saw that he had cleaned himself up — hair trimmed back to a more reasonable length, and his face was no longer bloated and stretched, as it had been in the manor. "The last I saw, you'd taken a knife in the chest. I expected you to be — to be…"

"Dead?" I finished for him, and he swallowed and nodded. "It'll take more than a little knife like that one to do me in."

"Well — that's the thing, isn't it?" Ron, the redhead said, giving me a sideways glance from his chair. "You-Know-Who did hit you with the _Avada Kedavra_. Harry told us. And you're still alive."

"I heard him say that," I nodded. "But I didn't know what it was. What's it supposed to do?"

"It's _supposed_ to kill you," Hermione, in the middle, said faintly. "But it didn't."

I rubbed the shoulder of the arm I was leaning on. It was the same arm I'd blocked the silver sword with, and I could see an angry red welt on my forearm. It still hadn't completely healed. Strange, that… "Not fer lack of trying, I can tell you!" I said, feelingly. "It feels like it just about did kill me."

"I think it did," Harry said, flatly. The other two kids looked at him in shock, and I stared at him, waiting to hear more. But he said nothing else.

"Maybe," I said at last, with a shrug. He might even be right, but how would I know? I hadn't seen any pearly gates yet, nor any fire and brimstone, for that matter, though if anything I was more likely to end up in the latter, if it existed. "But that ain't important right now. What I need to know is, did I take out Snake-Boy?"

Potter gave me a long look. I waited him out this time, wondering what he was trying to do, until he finally nodded, slowly, and said, "Yeah, you did — took his head right off his shoulders. Luckily for us, because he'd have had us, otherwise.

"As it was," Harry went on, "Draco and his mum were both so shocked they didn't do anything other than stare, even though I had both their wands, and Greyback and Bellatrix were out of action — Greyback probably permanently."

"Yeah," I muttered. "I expect he'll find living without a heart pretty difficult." Ron snorted, and Hermione shivered and looked away.

"Oh," Harry said. He looked at the other two for a moment. "So — um, what are you going to do now?"

The question struck me as odd. "Go home, I suppose," I shrugged. "If I can, that is. I been hoping someone back where I came from would be looking for me by now. I assume you're going to celebrate?"

Harry, who'd appeared lost in thought, looked up, startled. "Huh? Celebrate? Er — why?"

"Well, because You-Know-Who is _k-k-k-k-k_!" I drew a finger across my throat and made a slicing sound. When Harry didn't react, I added, "Well, _isn't_ he?"

"Er — yeah, I guess so," Harry shrugged, and I nodded, not really sure if he was lying or not. His two friends both looked at me uneasily, then at him. "Well, I guess we'll leave you alone now, so you can continue getting better."

I nodded again. "Sure kid, thanks." They got up, and I blinked as two of the chairs suddenly vanished right in front of me. Just as Harry opened the door, I spoke again. "Hey, kid. If you need any more help before I leave, give me a holler, okay?"

Harry seemed to consider that for several seconds. ."Okay," he said, and the three of them left the room. I wondered what other kind of mischief they'd be up to soon, because it was clear things were not as they seemed.


	2. A Fight's a Fight

**Gulo Gulo**

**Chapter Two  
****A Fight's a Fight**

Updated October 21, 2011

"I'm sorry, Mr. Logan. I can find no way to return you to your home."

I growled involuntarily, and the man sitting across from me moved back apprehensively. "Hey," I said, holding up a reassuring hand. "Don't mind me. I just don't take bad news very good."

The other people in the room with me relaxed. Well, more or less; I could still smell the apprehension, the _fear_, my very presence here generated in these people. The man across from me, Remus Lupin, was the most magically capable person in the room, and he'd just told me I was never going home again, barring someone from back there coming to get me.

But it had been almost two months now and nobody from my Earth — not Doctor Strange, not even the other X-Men, had come looking for me. Did they think I was dead or something? I couldn't help but wonder, with some bitterness, if they would have given up on Jean Grey so quickly.

"Look, bub, I took care of _your_ Dark Lord problem," I said "I thought you could get me home!"

"Magic got you here," Lupin agreed. "Or so you said, at least — it should be able to get you back home. But this 'Doctor Strange' you told us of must be capable of much greater magic than I or any wizard here can perform."

"Maybe so," I said, shifting on the wooden bench I was seated on.

"How are you feeling?" Molly Weasley, the red-headed woman I'd met when I first arrived here six weeks ago, asked with real concern in her voice.

"Okay," I grunted. "Most of the pain is gone, at least." I still wasn't one hundred percent, but I wasn't going to advertise that fact, even to these people. It had been a little over a month since I woke up in Shell Cottage, the home of Bill and Fleur Weasley, the son and daughter-in-law of Molly and Arthur Weasley, who was sitting next to his wife here in the kitchen of their home, the Burrow. Whatever had happened to me when I cut off Voldemort's head, I'd awakened with my entire body hurting, something I wasn't used to feeling without some major trauma happening to me.

Normally, my body heals minor wounds in seconds. The blow that put me out for two days, a cut on my arm from a blade called the Sword of Gryffindor, should have healed in a minute or two. My adamantium-covered bones had kept the blow from cutting off my arm, but something on the blade — Lupin had called it "basilisk venom" — had done a number on my healing factor.

"But that ain't important — what's important is finding a way to get me home," I insisted.

"We've tried everything, Mr. Logan," Arthur Weasley protested. "Remus has been pouring over Dumbledore's private library for weeks now, looking for something that will enable you to return home, but —"

"But — nothing," I rumbled. "Yeah, I get it, Artie. I'm stuck here." I shrugged. "Well, at least it's been interesting."

For a week I had been Man of the Century in Wizarding Britain, the Voldemort Killer that somebody called the "Chosen One," or alternatively the "Boy-Who-Lived," should have been. The Weasleys took me from Shell Cottage into London, to a small pub I was barely able to notice except by using my nose to find the odor of beer and tobacco, where it seemed like the entire population of Wizarding Britain showed up to shake my hand and thank me for taking care of "You-Know-Who" once again.

Doddering old wizards and hunched-over witches, men and women missing hands, arms, or legs, young people with wide, fearful expressions, all of them nodded and took my hand, many of them only touching it briefly, lest I somehow bring about their end as well. It was pretty uncomfortable, and I told the Weasleys so afterwards. They were apologetic, but insisted that it had to be done, so that everyone knew that Voldie was dead and they knew who did it.

The only people I didn't see during all this time was that Potter kid and his two friends, Ron and Hermione. And that didn't make sense — if their job was making sure Snake-Boy was dead, why weren't they there as well, at least taking credit for their part in this. I might not even be here if it hadn't been for Harry Potter coming back to the Malfoy mansion to get me.

It hadn't taken long to figure out why they weren't there.

"So where's Harry and his friends?" I asked Lupin and the Weasleys. "What're they off doing now?"

Lupin looked quickly at the other two, with a barely perceptible shake of his head. But I caught it, of course. "Um, we don't know," Arthur spoke up. He was lying, I could hear it in his voice and the changes in his heartbeat.

"Come on," I told him, in a tone that said I knew he wasn't being truthful. "If Voldie —" Lupin and the Weasleys winced "— was _really_ dead, Potter'd be home with his mommy and daddy."

"Don't say that! Harry is an orphan," Molly Weasley said, reprovingly. "His parents were killed by — by You-Know-Who, when he was only a year old. Arthur and I asked to take him in, but…" her voice trailed off unsteadily.

"But Dumbledore had other plans for him," Arthur finished. "He might have stayed with his godfather, Sirius Black, but Sirius was put in Azkaban Prison for killing Peter Pettigrew and twelve Muggles on the streets of London. Wrongfully, I might add."

"We didn't learn the truth until thirteen years later," Lupin took up the story. "Pettigrew _didn't_ die — he used the duel with Sirius to frame him for murder, both his and the Muggles, and went into hiding because he feared being discovered as the _real_ traitor, not Black. Sirius told me after he was out of Azkaban that Peter had been responsible for keeping the secret of the Potters' whereabouts, not him, because no one would suspect Peter of that much bravery."

"Okay," I said, impatiently. "But you're evading my question — is Voldie _really_ dead?" I frowned as everyone in the room but me winced.

There was silence for some time. None of them would meet my eyes. I was beginning to think they believed I could know whether they were telling the truth by looking at them eye-to-eye; they didn't realize I could tell by changes in their smell, breathing or heartbeat whether they were being truthful or not.

"We're — not sure," Lupin said at last. I didn't even need to listen to his heart or breathing — the looks on the faces of Arthur and Molly Weasley told me everything I needed to know.

"So where're that Potter kid and his friends?" I wanted to know. "What happened to them after I woke up?"

"Do you remember Griphook?" Lupin asked. When I didn't respond he added, "The goblin, the one that was at Malfoy Manor when you rescued Harry and the others?"

"I didn't rescue them," I pointed out. "Potter and his red-headed friend did that on their own, with the help of that other little person, Dobby."

"Right," Molly agreed, looking at her husband. "But you provided the distraction that let them escape with Hermione, and Dobby also rescued the other people trapped there — Luna Lovegood, Dean Thomas and Mr. Ollivander — as well."

"The day before you woke up," Arthur went on. "Griphook suddenly left Shell Cottage. We don't know where he went, but Harry said they had to find him. He didn't tell us why, but he didn't seem convinced that You-Know-Who was dead."

"He told me I took his head off," I said. "Just as he said something like 'Abracadabra' and I blacked out…" I trailed off, as all three of them were looking at me in shock.

"He hit you with the _Avada Kedavra_ and you _survived_?" Lupin said, in wonderment. "Harry didn't tell us that! We knew you were resistant to magic, but —"

"Yeah," I agreed. "The Potter kid seemed surprised about that as well. Just like he hadn't seemed convinced Voldie was moldy by now. So how could a guy survive having his head lopped off? And would you _please_ stop wincing every time I say 'Voldie'? I'm not saying the name, like you asked!"

"Sorry," Arthur said. "It's just that you can't say that name. _Please_."

I was beginning to wonder why they were so afraid of the name "Voldemort," but I had to know what was going on with this unkillable creep. "So what's up with What's-His-Name coming back after I whacked him, then?"

Lupin's face was grim. "Very, very Dark magic," he said. "The type of magic Professor Dumbledore would never allow to be taught at Hogwarts." Molly and Arthur were looking at one another, confused, as if they'd never heard of such magic. Evidently, however, Lupin had.

"So what's the straight dope, Lupin?" I asked, leaning forward to look him in the eye. "Inquiring minds want to know."

"I…think…Horcruxes," Lupin said, slowly, and at the last word Molly let out a short scream, and Arthur gasped and held her. It must have been a pretty bad word, to have that sort of effect on them.

"What are they?" I asked. "How would they keep Snake-Boy alive?"

"A Horcrux is an object that holds a part of a wizard's soul," Lupin explained. "It is enchanted so it is nearly indestructible — the only known things that can destroy them are basilisk venom and a Dark spell called Fiendfyre. Harry destroyed the first Horcrux four years ago, during his second year, when he stabbed Tom Riddle's diary with the basilisk fang that nearly killed him. Only Fawke's tears were able to save him."

"And what is Fawkes?" I asked.

"He was Dumbledore's phoenix," Lupin answered. "He disappeared after the professor was killed…" Lupin stopped, for my eyes had grown distant at the mention of the word "phoenix."

…Jean… I still missed her, and all of the chances she and I never took to be together… She had left Earth too, and though the Phoenix force had sometimes manifested itself on my Earth from time to time since then, Jean had never returned. Otherwise I'd be spending all my time here trying to send her a message, even from this universe to hers, wherever it was, trying to get her to come for me.

"Are…you alright, Logan?" Molly Weasley had reached out to me, not quite touching my arm as she did so.

I came back from wherever I'd gone, turning away from her so she couldn't see my face. "I'm fine," I said, roughly. "Nothing's wrong."

Molly looked at Arthur, who shook his head slightly, as if telling her not to press. She withdrew her hand, but gave me a concerned look, as if she knew I was lying but could do nothing to help me.

"I need to find Potter," I said suddenly, standing up. "I gotta talk to him about this Horcrux thing."

"That may not be advisable," Lupin said quickly, standing as well. "We're not completely sure they know about them, and it is vital that this information be kept as secret as possible."

"What about this Dumbledore character you keep talking about?" I asked. "Did he know about them?"

"He did," Lupin nodded. "Once I figured out how You-Know-Who might have survived, I questioned him about it. He didn't exactly confirm my suspicions, but he didn't deny them, either. He just told me not to mention what I knew about them to anyone, not even Harry."

"Which _might_ imply Potter didn't know," I muttered. "Or, you might have inferred it, incorrectly."

Lupin stiffened. "I suppose," he admitted, reluctantly. "Harry _was_ the Chosen One — it's possible Dumbledore gave that information to him as well. If that's so, he must have had proof that You-Know-Who had created a Horcrux. If Harry, Ron and Hermione are still out there it must mean —" he stopped for a moment, as if unwilling to go on, but finally continued, "It must mean there is more than one Horcrux."

Arthur and Molly were staring up at Lupin in horror. He turned to them, his face a mask of weariness and misery. "I'm sorry," Lupin said. "I couldn't tell you — couldn't tell _anyone_! Dumbledore considered Horcruxes to be too great an evil for anyone to know about, even if they would never create one." He turned back to me. "A Horcrux can only be created using a fragment of your soul, and the only way to sever a part of your soul is to commit an act of murder. Dumbledore feared that if knowledge of Horcruxes became widespread once more, people might try to cheat death by creating them, even those who might be repelled by the thought of doing murder. And it would _have_ to be murder — you couldn't just arrange to be present when someone died. It would have to be the deliberate taking of an unwilling victim."

Lupin sat down slowly, hunched over the table, his head held up by one hand. "I don't know where Harry is," he said without looking at me. "It's been weeks since anyone's heard from them. Don't know what to make of that."

"I got an idea," I said, shortly. "I need you to send me back to Malfoy Manor. That's where I'll start looking for them."

=ooo=

Malfoy Manor, again.

This time, though, I wasn't getting the same vibe from the place that I had the last time. There were people inside, like last time, but not nearly as many, though I couldn't tell how many, but at least the place wasn't radiating that _Run away! Run away!_ sensation I'd gotten here before.

I was interested in finding out why.

This time I just walked right up to the big iron gates, wondering if they'd twist around like I'd seen them do before into some kind of guardian, and challenge me for trying to enter. But nothing happened as I approached, and as I neared the gates I saw that they were unlocked. I pushed one gate open and walked up to the mansion's steps. This is where I'd watched as Fenrir Greyback and his flunkies showed Harry Potter and his friends to Narcissa Malfoy, the lady of the house, and she'd let them in. Nothing happened as I strode up the steps and carefully opened the front door, letting myself inside.

I found myself in the long hallway that led through the center of the mansion, the walls still lined with portraits of the Malfoy family. My nose was telling me more now: three people were in here, somewhere — one of them was Potter; I knew his scent. The other two scents were familiar as well — I placed them as Ron and Hermione, who'd been with him when he visited me at Shell Cottage. The only question that needed answering now was why were they still here?

My first guess had been that they'd start here, at "the scene of the crime," so to speak, to try and figure out what happened to Voldie. I'd left quite a mess when Potter 'ported me out of here — I'd whacked off the sword arm of that black-haired Lestrange woman, and had gutted Greyback when we fought for the last time. I could smell blood here still, but not decomposition. There was no sound of motion within the house — it was almost like everything froze the moment I entered the place. Guess I should expect that, with magic and all; Potter and the others probably knew someone had entered the house. So what was next —

That question was suddenly answered as I felt myself yanked into the air by my ankle and suspended upside down. Again. Son of a bitch, I hated that spell! "Potter!" I called out. "It's me, Logan!"

Potter appeared from one of the doors further down the hallway, as did two other familiar faces, his buddy Ron, the red-head, and the young woman, Hermione, from two other doors. All three of them had their wands trained on me.

"Logan?" Potter said, peering carefully at me as I hung by my ankle in thin air. "How did you find us?"

"Wasn't that hard," I said, curtly. "But I thought you'd be long gone from here by now. Are you gonna let me down or what?"

Potter looked at his two companions. "How do we know you're the _real_ Logan?" he asked.

"Kid, who the hell else would I be," I growled, exasperated. "With _these_?" I popped my claws, showing them to him.

"They could be fakes," the red-head said, warningly.

"No they couldn't, Ron!" the girl disagreed, suddenly. She looked at me. "Those are made from something you called adamantium, right?" she asked.

"Yeah," I answered, a bit baffled by the question.

Hermione turned to her friends. "Polyjuice Potion duplicates a person's body, even down to missing limbs, but it cannot create anything artificial inside them. Like Mad-Eye's eye, Harry, remember? We found that metal inside the Logan who was at Shell Cottage." She waved her wand at me. "It's the same elemental metal that inside _this_ Logan, a metal that's never been found anywhere on this Earth. This is the same Logan that was at Shell Cottage!"

Adamantium wasn't exactly an element, not the way she was thinking of elements, anyway; in its stable form the compound gleamed like highly polished metal, but I wasn't going to muddy the waters by launching into a chemistry lesson. It wasn't something they needed to know anyway.

"Okay," Potter said, convinced. My ankle was suddenly released, and I caught myself, landing on my hands and rolling to my feet in one fluid motion.

"Let's go in here," Potter pointed to a nearby door, the room I had first snuck into when I infiltrated the place several weeks ago. Once the door was closed behind us, and some of the lamps in the room were lit, I surveyed the walls. No pictures in here, good. The girl was casting several spells as I continued to scope out the room, probably spells to hide our presence here in the house, if anyone else should come in. I nodded approvingly at her caution. Finally she finished and turned back to join Potter and the red-head.

"Thanks," I said at last, though I really felt more like yelling at them for hanging me up by my ankle. "So what's been going on here? You figure out what happened to Voldie yet?" Ron winced as I said that. What, him too? What _was_ it with that name?

"We've been here for about a week," Potter replied. "When we first got here, the Ministry — that is, his people at the Ministry — were going over this place like crazy. Eventually they all left, though, and we were able to get inside. They removed all the enchantments protecting the manor — probably so they wouldn't have to deal with them again if they returned."

"We couldn't figure out why they were here in the first place," Hermione spoke up. "If he was running the Ministry, they should have _known_ what had happened to him. We thought they might have taken him somewhere else, to reattach his head somehow, and revive him."

"So you didn't really think he was dead," I pointed out, "when you told me I took him out." I hadn't detected any lie then, I suppose, because I was distracted with the pain my body was suffering from.

"Yes," Potter nodded, his voice flat. "We knew he wasn't dead."

"Why not?" I asked.

Potter glanced at his companions. "We can't really say…"

"You mean you can't talk about Horcuxes?" I said, forestalling any prevarication on his part. All three of them had leaned back in shock at my pronouncement of the word.

"How did you —" Ron began, his voice a hiss of shock and surprise.

"Ron!" Hermione cut him off, probably realizing that the red-head was about to give away what they knew.

"Just hold it," Harry said, stopping them both. He looked back at me. "What do you know about them?"

"Lupin told me," I said. I repeated what the werewolf had told me about Horcruxes, ending with, "He said Voldie —" Ron winced again "— could have created more than one.

Harry was nodding slowly. "He did." Hearing that I'd gotten the information from Lupin seemed to mean something to him. "He probably created six Horcruxes, to split his soul seven ways, seven being the most magically powerful number."

"Lupin said you already destroyed one, some diary," I continued. "Have you destroyed any more?"

"Dumbledore found a ring that belonged to Marvolo Gaunt, that he took from his son Morfin to create one," Harry replied. "He may have created that Horcrux even before he left Hogwarts. The professor destroyed the ring, but there was a curse on it that caused his hand to wither. Before it could kill him, though, he was murdered by Severus Snape, on the Astronomy Tower at Hogwarts."

"That's two, then," I said. "Are there any others?"

Harry nodded. "We found a locket that had belonged to Salazar Slytherin, which he'd used to create one, but for a long time we didn't have a way to destroy it. When we — Ron, actually — recovered the Sword of Gryffindor from a pool in the Forest of Dean, he was able to use it to destroy the locket.

"We made a deal with Griphook," Harry said. "To get us into Gringotts, into the Lestrange vault, because we suspected there were other Horcruxes stored there. The deal was that Griphook would get the sword after we got out of there. We found Hufflepuff's Cup — he'd stolen it from a woman named Hepzibah Smith — but Griphook betrayed us to the other goblins and stole the Sword."

"But _we_ were going to betray _him_ as well, and not give him the Sword until we were done with it," Hermione interjected, in a clearly disapproving tone.

"Whatever," Ron snapped. "He betrayed us _first_!"

"_Anyway_," Harry said loudly, and the other two kids shut up. "Anyway," he continued, in a normal voice. "That leaves only two other Horcruxes. We think one is something Rowena Ravenclaw owned. The other may be the snake Nagini, but we don't know for sure."

"What have you found out _here_?" I asked, folding my arms across my chest. They'd been here several days already; what had they been doing, having a camp-out or something?

"We've been trying to reconstruct what happened here after we escaped," Hermione spoke up. She seemed to have overcome most of her apprehension about me, I noticed. "The Ministry people weren't very thorough — we found some things they missed."

"Such as," I prompted.

"Such as — this," she said, retrieving a beaded bag from beneath her robes and pulling out an object that seemed too large to have fit inside it. It was a canister, which Hermione opened, showing him —

Heh. I almost cracked a smile at what was inside. It was a section of a woman's arm, about an inch thick. I knew exactly what it was — it had come from the arm of Bellatrix Lestrange, from when I took off her arm above the elbow as she brandished the Sword of Gryffindor at me. She'd been lucky — I'd been aiming for her chest.

"We found this under the sofa in the drawing room," Hermione explained. There were no other parts of Bellatrix's arm, or of the body of Fenrir Greyback." She glanced toward me, with a little self-conscious gulp of apprehension. "Harry said that you had…that you'd…"

"I killed him," I said simply. "It was him or me, and I don't lay down and die that easily."

"But without any witnesses," the red-head said, "we're working in the dark here. We don't have any way of finding out what went on after we skived out of here."

I gave the kid a stern look. Hell, none of them seemed to realize— "I'd say you got a whole passel of witnesses here, if you'd just think about it for a second."

They all looked blankly at me, then Hermione suddenly slapped herself on the side of her head. "Of course!" she exclaimed. "How _stupid_ of me!"

"What?" the red-head looked completely confused. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, I guessed. At that same moment Harry suddenly cursed under his breath.

"The portraits!" Harry said, loudly. "Dammit! We've been hiding from them for so long we forgot they could tell us what went on here!" The lights were just coming on in Ron's eyes, I could see.

But he caught up pretty fast. "But how're we gonna get them to tell us _anything_?" he asked. "They'll be loyal to the Malfoys — they aren't going to give us anything!"

"So, threaten them," I said, holding up a hand. _Snikt_. I'm sure they'll cooperate if there's something in it for them. Like staying in one piece."

"No," Hermione said. "We won't have to go that far. I know a few things we can do to persuade them to talk." She actually smiled at me. "Thank you, Mr. Logan, this is an excellent idea!"

"I have my moments," I rumbled.

=ooo=

The portrait of Salazar Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy's great-grandfather, glared haughtily at us, though it kept one eye on Hermione's wand, waiting to see when she would bring it to bear again. He'd already had a taste of Hermione's information extraction technique. I was pretty sure he didn't want to experience it again.

When the three had entered the Malfoy mansion a week ago, the first thing Hermione had done was cast a Blindfold Hex and a Muffliato spell on each of the portraits in the main hallway. According to her, it was pretty disconcerting for a picture to have its main means of communicating with the world outside of portraits suddenly cut off. A few of them, the ones that had portraits hung elsewhere, might have been able to go to one of those, to call for help, but Hermione had also cast a Binding Hex on each picture, so that every one of them was bound, blinded, and deaf in their frames.

"This will avail you nothing," Salazar Malfoy was saying. "None of us will tell you anything — none of us! And once Lucius learns you are here, he will stop at nothing to destroy you!"

"Maybe you haven't heard," Ron drawled. "But Lucius lost his wand a long time ago — oh, he never told you?" Ron was grinning at the look of surprised dismay on the portrait's face.

"You're lying," Salazar said at last, his eyes narrowed in calculated anger. "No one but the Dark Lord would dare —"

"Who do you think took it from him," Harry interrupted. "He wanted a wand that wouldn't interact with mine. He thought another wizard's wand would fill the bill. He was wrong. Lucius Malfoy's wand was destroyed when he tried to use it against me.

"Malfoy and his family have had to leave this home once he arrived here but was unable to keep me from escaping," Harry went on, dispassionately. "They will not be back anytime soon to rescue you. It's in your best interest to tell us everything you know about what happened after I and my friends escaped. Otherwise, we'll have no choice but to leave you bound, blindfolded, and all sound eliminated, for the foreseeable future. The choice is up to you."

I listened to Potter with growing approval. While I appreciated the kid coming back for me when Voldie had me helpless in Malfoy Manor, his frontal assault was not the best-laid plan. Now he was showing some knowledge of psychological manipulation, although I wasn't sure how effective it would be on a moving portrait.

"Ridiculous!" the portrait was saying. "The house-elves will —"

Harry was shaking his head. "They're all gone, too. You're all alone here, you and the other portraits here, and once we're done with you, none of you will even be able to talk to one another, let alone visit."

"Poppycock!" Salazar snapped, but there was a worried frown on his forehead.

"Well, let's move on, shall we?" Hermione said, recasting a Binding Hex on the portrait, who sputtered indignantly until a Quieting Charm was cast on it, along with the Blindfold Hex and Muffliato. We moved down to the next picture, one Cerinthus Malfoy, a younger brother of Abraxas Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy's father. The man looked quite similar to Lucius and almost nothing like his older brother; it made me wonder who Lucius Malfoy's real father was. Hermione finished removing the blindfold and other bindings on the picture, and it stared at us apprehensively.

"What do you want?" the picture drawled, in a voice that was also similar to Lucius's.

"Information," Harry replied. "We want to know what went on here after Fenrir Greyback and his Snatchers brought Harry Potter and his friends to Malfoy Manor."

"How would I know about that?" Cerinthus asked, blandly. "That happened elsewhere in the manor. I have no direct knowledge of what went on in that room."

"You have a picture frame in the drawing room," Hermione pointed out. "You could have seen what happened. In fact, it seems likely that you would have, since that's what you portraits do — you watch the comings and goings of the people who live here, in case that information should prove useful."

"It seems that information might prove useful, to you — _if_ you can make it worth my while to tell you," the picture suggested, with a sneer.

This was the tenth picture we'd questioned, and only the second one that was also in the drawing room. I was getting impatient for results. I stepped up beside Hermione, showing the picture my fist. "I can think of a way to make it worth your while, bub," I said. _Snikt_. Three adamantium blades gleamed in the dim lamplight of the hallway. All the portraits in the hallway had Permanent Sticking Charms on them, but that wouldn't stop me from slashing the canvas to shreds. "I suggest you start talking unless you want to end up like confetti."

Cerinthus eyed my claws fearfully. "I'm sure some accommodation can be made," he said quickly. "What is it you wish to know?"

"What happened after the prisoners escaped?" Harry demanded.

"It was absolute bedlam," Cerinthus exclaimed. "Sheer bedlam! The Lestrange woman was shrieking in pain, telling the mistress and the master they had to get the Dark Lord somewhere safe, so she could be healed and the Dark Lord revived. The house-elves gathered their things and brought the master the werewolf's wand. He Vanished the body of the werewolf and the unconscious Snatchers, and they departed through a Floo connection."

Harry, Ron and Hermione were looking at one another worriedly. "How'd Bellatrix know that You-Know-Who could be revived?" Ron asked, of no one in particular.

"I have no idea," Cerinthus spoke up, unexpectedly. "He certainly _looked_ dead."

"So you _did_ see him," I growled. "I thought you said you didn't."

"Well — I certainly saw him when they carried him into the hallway," Cerinthus replied quickly. "To bring him to the Floo fireplace, I mean."

"But there's a fireplace in the drawing room!" Hermione said, shaking her head at the portrait. "It's large enough for a Floo connection!"

Harry pointed at the portrait. "Bind him," he said to Hermione. After that was accomplished, he led us back into the drawing room, up to the huge stone fireplace with the ornate marble mantelpiece, then turned to her once again. "Is there any way we can figure out where they Floo'ed to?"

Hermione looked deep in thought for several seconds. "None I can think of," she said at last, in a disappointed tone. "Other than hoping the Malfoys had a 'Re-Floo' enchantment on their Floo connection."

"What's _that_?" Ron appeared baffled by the term.

"It was a new feature the Ministry was adding to the Floo Network," Hermione explained. It sends you to the last connection Floo'ed. It was in the _Prophet_ a few years ago, just before Minister Fudge was sacked and the Ministry began clamping down on Floo connections. If you read the paper more, Ron, you'd know that."

Ron rolled his eyes. "Okay," he said, with what I could tell was false bravado. "So who's gonna try it out?"

"We don't even know if the Malfoy's fireplace has this —" Hermione began.

"I'll go," I said. They all looked at me.

"Um," Harry said. "Mr. Logan, don't take this wrong, but if we find the Malfoys or Bellatrix Lestrange, I'd like to be able to question them. I want to go through first."

"Why?" I asked.

"Why?" Harry repeated, puzzlement in his voice. "To find out what they know."

"What do you think they know?" I pressed.

"What happened to Vo— uh, him!" Harry replied, hotly.

Alright, enough is enough. None of these kids had yet said the name "Voldemort" in front of me, just like Lupin and the Weasleys.

"What _is_ it with this creep's name?" I demanded. "Why won't anybody say the name —"

"_Don't say it_!" Ron jerked forward, hand extended to stop me.

"Why not?" I asked.

"There's a Taboo curse on the name," Hermione said. "We found out when Harry said the name while we were listening to Potterwatch — that's when those men, the Snatchers, found and captured us and took us to Malfoy Manor, where…" she broke off, looking shaken.

"What do you think is going to happen when you show up wherever that whatever-it-is-connection takes you?" I asked, pointing at the fireplace. "If they took Snake-Boy through there, they either severed the connection or they're waiting for someone else to come through, to trap them!"

"Amazingly enough, I already figured that out," Harry retorted, dryly. "I know the risks."

"_Do_ you, kid?" I snorted. "I've been doing this a hell of a lot longer than you have, so I really doubt that." I turned to the girl. "What happens if we try this 'Re-Floo' thing and they've disconnected it somehow?"

Hermione blinked, then seemed to be looking at something with her mind's eye. "If you name a destination that's no longer on the Floo Network, the fire will flash blue for a moment, so you can either step out or try another one."

"Can the connections be changed so that another destination is substituted for the original one?" I persisted.

"It could," Hermione nodded, after a moment, "but the Re-Floo wouldn't work then — you'd have to name the destination again, even if it used the same name as the old one."

"Who controls access to a connection," I went on. "Is it at the destination, or with whoever controls the network?"

"Both," Hermione said. "Most fireplaces have a Floo vent. When it's closed, it severs the connection to the network, making it unavailable. The Floo Regulation Panel can also turn off the connection." She looked at Harry. "You remember telling me that Mr. Weasley, Fred, George and Ron came to get you for the Quidditch World Cup through your aunt and uncle's fireplace?"

Harry nodded, with a wide smile. "Yeah," he said. "Except my uncle had boarded up the fireplace, and was using an electric one in its place." He glanced at Ron, grinning, who returned it in equal measure. "Then there was the Ton-Tongue Toffee incident," Harry added, in a tone of fond reminiscence.

I wasn't sure what a "Ton-Tongue Toffee" was, but we were getting off-track. "What I'm getting at," I interjected loudly, "is that you have no idea what will happen if you step through that fireplace."

"Well, neither do you," Harry retorted, in a defiant tone. "Plus, you're not even a wizard."

"I survived a Killing Curse," I growled. "Can you say the same?"

"I can, actually," Harry answered.

"Harry…" Hermione said warningly. "It's not the same. Mr. Logan is a lot more resistant to magic than we are, for some reason."

"That's right," I said. "That's why I need to be the first one through that fireplace." I couldn't believe I was really saying this. Three weeks ago I was fighting Sentinels with Doc Strange and some of the other X-Men, and now here I was, playing Dungeons and Dragons in some weird magical alternate universe. But what the hell — a fight's a fight.

"I can't allow you to put yourself in danger for me —" Harry began, but I cut him off with a harsh laugh.

"Kid, you don't know the _half_ of what I've been through," I told him. "I've been shredded nearly to bits by getting the metal inside me ripped outta me all at once, I've been torn in half, I've had most of the flesh blasted from my body, an' you'll notice I'm still kickin'." Just for emphasis, I popped one claw and moved my hand so it was up against his neck before he could blink. The girl and the red-head both drew their wands, pointing them at me, but Harry held up a hand signaling to put them away. "You'll notice," I continued, "That one flick of my wrist could finish you in a second. So I think I can handle whatever I happen to find on the other end of that fireplace better than you can."

Harry was silent. After several seconds Ron spoke. "Harry, he _did_ survive a Killing Curse, you know."

"Yeah," Harry said, still looking like he wanted to argue more. But — "I guess you made your point, Mr. Logan. You can go through first."

I nodded and my claw retracted back into my hand; I then turned to Hermione, who was clearly the smartest one of the three. "So how's this 'Floo' thingie work, anyway?"

She pointed to a bowl on the marble fireplace mantel. "You take a pinch of Floo powder and throw it into the — oh! I guess we'll need a fire." She took out her wand and pointed it into the fireplace. "_Incendio_!" A fire immediately started up, yellow flames crackling over the unburned wood. She took a pinch of the powder in the bowl and tossed it into the flames. They turned green and swirled up even higher than before.

"Don't get out at the wrong grate," Ron warned. "And keep your arms tucked in."

"Oh shush, Ron!" Hermione told him, severely. "There are probably only a few Floo connections nowadays — Mr. Logan, if you end up in Ministry headquarters or someplace where you think retreat is best, try to come back here if you can, and we'll shut off the connection. We'll only have a few seconds to get away before someone Apparates into the area, so…"

She was thinking of these things just now? Maybe I overestimated her intelligence…

"Now, you step into the flames and say 'Re-Floo' very clearly," Hermione finished. I gave her a skeptical look. _Step into the flames_? But even if they burned me, which I doubted would happen, I could heal in a few minutes.

"Okay," I said. "Here goes nothing!" I stepped into the green flames. They felt like a warm breeze, not hot at all. "Re-Floo!" I said loudly, and it was like I had fallen in a hole — I was suddenly falling and spinning at the same time.

Hermione had been right — I saw only one or two grate-shaped lights flash by before I began slowing as one came into view. The next thing I knew I was standing hearth of a fireplace, covered in soot. The soot was interfering with my senses — I couldn't smell anyone at all.

But the room I was in seemed to be empty, at least. I looked around. It was some kind of study, I saw; there were shelves and shelves of books along the walls, all old, leather-bound volumes that might be centuries old. The only furniture in the room was a reading chair with a lamp on a reading table beside it, and a box I recognized as a Wizard Wireless Network receiver, similar to the one at the Burrow. There was an ordinary wooden door across from the fireplace.

Striding over, I tried the door. Locked. I couldn't tell if it was normally locked or locked with magic somehow, but at the moment it didn't much matter. Popping a claw, I pushed it into the wood above the doorknob and drew a semicircle around it. The doorknob fell out, dropping on the floor with a clattering sound that seemed very loud to my quiet-accustomed ears. Well, that should attract someone, if there was anyone else in the house.

I didn't hear any footsteps approaching. I snorted, trying to blow the stink of smoke out of my nose, so I could take a sniff and see if I smelled anyone. Moving through the door, I entered a long hallway with doors on one side of the hall. Maybe this house wasn't big enough for a central hallway, like the Malfoy mansion.

Moving cautiously down the hall, I took a few more experimental sniffs. My nose was getting clearer, but I still mostly smelled smoke. There was a hint of something familiar, though…

I tried the first door I came to. It was open. I stepped inside, only to be surrounded by a darkness so deep it completely blocked my vision. _What the hell_? I wondered. More magic?

A screech of fury was the only thing that alerted me, I backed away the moment I heard it, and something _swooshed_ past my face, so close I felt a bare breeze from its passage touch my face.

_Snikt_. Two could play that game. Even though I couldn't see a thing, I could estimate where a person holding a sword would be to take that swing. My claws shot forward, and I felt them puncture flesh — but just barely. There was a yelp of pain and the darkness dissipated.

She stood facing me, her sword arm restored, though I could tell it was a little over an inch shorter than her other arm. "I wondered if we would see you again, little man," she said, her eyes gleaming with bloodlust. I hadn't paid attention before, but she was tall for a woman, six or seven inches taller than me. Like that was going to make a difference to me.

I held up my claws; the tips were stained with her blood, and I could see the puncture holes in her black dress where blood was seeping through. "Did you wonder whether you'd feel _these_ again, girlie?"

She laughed, the sound harsh in my ears. "Do you think I am not prepared for you now? Do you see this sword?" She flipped the tip upward, almost like a salute. "I recovered this from the goblins just yesterday, in partial payment for the ransacking of my vault by Potter, the blood traitor, the mudblood, and their pet goblin."

She hefted the sword, grinning maniacally at me. "This sword has an interesting property, the goblins told me — it imbibes only that which strengthens it. When the sword cut your arm, it became nearly indestructible. It can cut through anything now — including _you_!"

My surprise didn't reach my face, but why didn't Potter or the others _tell_ me about this? Did they not know that the sword acted this way?

"If you can hit me with it," I reminded her, coldly. I held my hands forward, claws still extended. "But I'll stack my six blades against your one, any day."

Lestrange took the sword in both hands, holding it in front of her. "Let's see what made of, then," she said. "And I mean it, too — I'm going to find out what color your guts are, little man."


	3. Out of the Fireplace, Into the Fire

Gulo Gulo

**Chapter Three**  
**Out of the Fireplace, Into the Fire**

Updated January 14, 2012

I faced Bellatrix Lestrange over our respective blades of choice — my six adamantium-coated claws versus her gleaming sword, called the Sword of Gryffindor. The outcome of this duel seemed like a forgone conclusion; as far as I was concerned, she didn't stand a chance.

The only wrinkle in my certitude was what Lestrange had just told me — that the blade she held had absorbed the hardness of my adamantium-covered skeleton when she had tried to cut me with it several weeks earlier. That cut had left a nasty red welt that took days to heal, not minutes or hours, because the blade had been used to kill a basilisk once, a monster with extremely poisonous venom. If it could now cut my adamantium bones as well, it would be a formidable weapon, even against my six blades, my mutant healing factor, and my strength and agility.

But that's not the way adamantium works.

I've been up against enemies who've used adamantium as well — Cyber being a good example — and adamantium cutting adamantium isn't as easy as one might think. Not that I was going to give Lestrange much of a chance to do anything with that sword of hers. I had to take her out before Potter or the others came through to this place like I had, through the fireplace from Malfoy Manor, and she had more potential victims to threaten.

"What's the matter, little man?" Lestrange sneered at me over the sword she held. "Afraid of a little bit of steel? Come closer — I'll make it easy on you. One quick thrust through the heart, it'll only hurt a moment."

I grinned crookedly. She didn't know about my healing ability. A sword through my heart would put me down, but it wouldn't kill me. Even trying to chop me up wouldn't do it, though that basilisk-envenomed blade might make something like that incredibly painful. More'n likely, though, running a blade through me would probably set off a berserker rage in me, and then God help anyone who was nearby. "Good luck with that, girly," I sneered back at her. Two could play the psych game as well as one.

Bellatrix bared her teeth at me, a rictus of rage. I did the same, a feral grin that invited attack, and we charged one another. Bellatrix screamed, swinging the blade high as she neared; my arms were spread wide, my claws extended, ready to dodge the sword and strike at her vitals. As we neared striking range, she began her swing and —

— vanished into thin air. I jerked at this unexpected tactic, remembering too late that these magical types could teleport, like Nightcrawler. I felt Lestrange's presence behind me even as I heard the soft _crack_ of her reappearance, and spun away as the tip of her sword scored a cut along my back, a cut that burned with the pain of the basilisk's venom.

"Nice try," I growled as I spun to face her, but she vanished again. I immediately leaped forward, toward where she had been, and the Sword of Gryffindor sliced empty air behind me this time.

This cat-and-mouse game continued for several more passes — I'd rush her, trying to close to striking distance, and she'd teleport — or Apparate — whatever these wizards call it — away, trying to appear close enough to attack me before I could spin around and run her though. The tactic wasn't working out for either of us, though I was getting more and more annoyed every time she _poofed_ away before my claws could reach her.

Finally, she and I faced one another across the room — her panting from the exertion of her teleports, me crouched and ready, watching her closely to see if she was faking or not. She wasn't; I could smell the stink of her sweat. Lupin had told me a bit about Apparition; it seemed that if a witch or wizard wasn't concentrating with sufficient deliberation, they could 'splinch' themselves — leave part of their body behind when they teleported. Bellatrix had already left part of herself behind, the last time we met—I'd seen to that! — and I hoped I could get her to do it the next time she tried to 'port behind me. I braced myself for a leap that would send my claws into her vitals, and lunged.

"_Levicorpus_!"

My foot jerked out from beneath me, and I spun upside down, dangling helplessly in the air again. This was getting to be a bad habit. I looked around for whoever had done this to me, but a sudden scream from Bellatrix made me turn back to her, my arms out to deflect her attack as she leaped at me just as the person who'd spoken before cried, "_Protego_!"

Bellatrix hit an unseen barrier and bounced back, falling on her tail. "Damn you!" she cried. "I could have finished him!"

"That would be impulsive and foolish," a dry voice responded. "The Dark Lord wants to make an end of this one personally."

By now most of the soot was out of my nose and I sniffed, smelling grease and body odor. The person standing in the doorway of the room was a sallow-faced man with long, black hair, wearing black wizard's robes and pointing a wand at the space between Bellatrix and me. I'd never seen him before — he hadn't been at Malfoy Manor. Who was he?

That question was answered as Bellatrix picked herself up off the floor. "What are you doing here, Snape?" she snapped at him. "You're supposed to be healing —" her eyes jerked momentarily to me "er— helping the Dark Lord with his recovery."

Snape glanced at me as well. "Despite your loose tongue, Bellatrix, I'm quite sure this Muggle knows what happened to the Dark Lord, since he inflicted the damage I am attempting to heal. I am here to locate a final potion recipe that will be required to return him to what for him passes for 'normal' — the potions that healed your arm are ineffective on him."

"Be a neat trick to put a man's head back on his body and have him live," I growled, upside down and (supposedly) helpless.

"Not as hard as you might think, Muggle," Bellatrix sneered. "Not when you're the greatest Dark Lord that has ever lived —"

"I'm sure this Muggle doesn't share our respect for the Dark Lord's greatness, Bellatrix," Snape interrupted, coldly. He stepped further into the room, moving to stand between me and Bellatrix. "Nor does he need to know _anything else_ about our lord."

"I know enough already," I said, wondering when the spell that had me hanging here was going to fail. It always had before, whenever it had been cast on me. This time, I was going to be ready to move when it did.

Snape turned to me, a smile almost curling his pale lips. "What do you think you know?"

I opened my mouth, then closed it, because I realized I'm pissed off and I tend to say more than I should when I'm that way. It seemed pretty obvious to me Snape knows that Voldie is using Horcruxes, especially if he's trying to bring a decapitated man back to life. Bellatrix may know about them as well, since she seems to think Snape is going to bring Snake-Boy back somehow.

On the other hand, neither of them may know a thing about Horcruxes; they may think Voldie can be brought back for other reasons. That had happened before, I'd been told, when the Potter kid had been kidnapped during some kind of wizards' tournament. They'd told me that if Potter hadn't escaped, nobody would have known that Voldemort had come back except his followers, and Wizarding Britain would have been totally unprepared when he made his play to take over their government. As it was, they'd only delayed that by a few years.

I opened my mouth again. "I know that you ain't got a chance in hell of succeeding," I said, instead of what I'd originally intended. "They'll stop you."

"If you're speaking of the Order of the Phoenix," Snape replied, dryly. "They are all but defeated. I would not put any hope in their success, or in any chance that they might try to rescue you. You will be brought to the Dark Lord, who has requested your presence for his pleasure. And soon, we will locate Harry Potter and his friends, who will be brought before the Dark Lord as well."

I didn't say anything to that. There wasn't much to say, really. I wanted to get next to Voldemort again, to have another go at him. If cutting off his head didn't work, maybe I'd try slicing him into as many pieces as I could. Let's see this Snape character try to put _that_ back together!

Then I caught a whiff of a familiar scent, something that had been tickling my senses but I'd been ignoring while sparring with grease ball Snape. It was the smell of Potter; he was nearby, though I couldn't see him anywhere. Could the kid make himself _invisible_, too?

It was annoying, having this Potter kid following after me like I was some inexperienced idiot who couldn't take care of himself. If he was supposed to be doing something about these Horcruxes Lupin had told me about, he an' his friends oughta be off taking care of that business, while I took care of Voldie!

Snape had told Bellatrix to go to his study and retrieve a certain book, the book he'd returned here to get. This must be where he lived, then. That made the connection between this place and Malfoy Manor understandable; this Snape must be one of the higher-ups in Voldemort's command chain, such as it was. Snape was all but ignoring me, looking around the room we were in as if he hadn't seen it in a long time.

The room was some type of dining room, I surmised, but it was nearly empty; only a small table sat in a nearby corner, with a single wooden chair and a half-burned candle on it, in a crudely-made holder. The rest of the room stank of burnt wax, old uneaten bits of food, dust and even a little of Snape; he had been here recently, I guessed, probably to find whatever information he'd needed to heal Bellatrix's arm and his master's neck.

"So what's the plan, Stan?" I asked, still hanging upside down. The spell holding me still hadn't failed. Maybe that wasn't so bad, though; if it broke while Snape was watching me he might put an even more powerful whammy on me, one that would be even harder to break. "Are we just hanging out here or what?"

"You're the one hanging out," Snape remarked. That was probably as close to a joke as one could get out of the man. "When Bellatrix finds the book I require, we shall return to the Dark Lord's new lair, where you will witness his return, as he requested if we were able to find you beforehand."

I manages not to raise an eyebrow at that. How was Voldie able to "request" that I witness his return if his head was separated from his shoulders? _Magic_, I reminded myself sardonically. "Then what?" I ask, keeping my voice steady.

"The Dark Lord normally keeps his own counsel on such matters," Snape said. "But I suspect he will send you out to make contact with Harry Potter and his friends."

"Huh," I snorted, chuckling. "What's makes your snake-boss think I got any idea where this Potter kid is?"

"The fact that you were there in Malfoy Manor when he arrived, and that Potter returned to rescue you," Snape retorted.

"An' what makes him think I'm gonna help him find Potter?" I growl.

"You will have little choice in the matter," Snape replied, with a sneer that had no humor behind it. "The Imperius Curse is quite powerful."

Bellatrix entered the room again, holding out a book toward Snape. "This had better be the one you wanted," she said, annoyance in her voice. "Took me long enough to find it."

"This is the one," Snape nodded, ignoring her tone. He slipped it into his robes, then pointed his wand at me. Heavy ropes shot out of the tip and wound about me, pinning my arms to my sides. Within moments my entire upper body was covered in rope. With another flick of his wand I suddenly rotated in mid-air so that my legs were pointing downward once again. I dropped to the floor, my feet hitting with two _thuds_.

"We will proceed to the study," Snape said, with deadly authority in his voice. "Bellatrix will lead the way; I will bring up the rear." He pointed his wand at me. "If you attempt to run or make any hostile move you will find yourself once again dangling by your ankle." I wondered if he knew Stun spells didn't work on me, and if so, how he'd learned that.

Bellatrix grinned cruelly at me then turned to lead the way. We walked slowly down the hallway to the room whose door I'd cut the lock out of. Behind Snape I could also hear very soft footfalls that were almost masked by Snape's footsteps. That would have to be Potter, I guessed, shadowing us. I gritted my teeth, wishing like hell I could tell him to let me do my own thing. Bellatrix might have a clue about how dangerous I could be, but I'd bet she'd never admit it to anyone, not even her precious snake-man.

Bellatrix led us into the room, stopping in front of the fireplace. I sensed another presence in the room the moment I entered, but kept myself from looking around. The room was nearly empty, anyway; there was only one place the person could be.

Snape was right behind me. "Go ahead, Bella," he said, shortly. "I will send the Muggle through one minute afterwards, to give you and the others time to prepare for his arrival. Return before then if preparations cannot be made in time."

Bellatrix gave Snape a look that clearly said she did not appreciate him giving her orders, but turned and threw a pinch of powder from a pot on the mantle into the dead fireplace. It roared to life with green flames. At the same moment I heard a barely-perceptible gasp from behind the reading chair, the only piece of furniture in the room. Bellatrix was stepping into the green flames, saying "Riddle Mansion!" as she did so. She vanished.

But Snape had also somehow heard the sound. He was staring suspiciously at the reading chair, then pointed his wand at it. "Whoever you are," he spoke in a low, menacing tone. "I will be quite upset if my favorite chair is gone. I suggest you show yourself — _now_."

The chair shivered. I set myself to lunge at Snape, ropes and all, but his wand suddenly spun toward me. "Don't _move_," he said, forcefully, and I stopped, ready to leap if I saw an opening.

The reading chair suddenly slid toward Snape, and he called out "_Stupefy_!" even as his wand moved to point at it. The bolt hit the chair and stopped it, flipping it onto its back. At the same time a voice cried out, "Logan — MOVE!" as I charged Snape. Behind the chair was Hermione Granger — she had shoved the chair at Snape and rolled out of the way, revealing Ron Weasley right behind her.

I rolled off to one side, guessing at their intention. Ron shouted "_Expelliarmus_!" and Snape's wand flew into the air.

At the same moment, from the doorway, another voice cried "_Impedimenta_!" Caught flat-footed, Snape staggered back toward the fireplace, where green flames still swirled. His arms shot out, catching either side of the fireplace, and stopped himself from falling into the flames.

Until I kicked out from the floor, catching him in the hip with my foot. He shouted "No! You— " as he fell into the flames, and vanished. Harry appeared, casting off a silvery-gray cloak and pointing his wand at the fireplace. "_Finite_!" he cried, and the green flames died away. Harry looked around the fireplace, then reached down and turned a small metal handle on the side of the fireplace.

"I hope that's the Floo Damper," he said, turning to look at Hermione and Ron. Hermione was picking herself off the floor with Ron's help. The three of them then turned to me.

"I hope yer happy," I said, with controlled anger. "I was about to find out where Snake-Boy's holed up."

"You're welcome," Harry said, with irony in his voice. "We were happy to save you from Bellatrix and Snape."

"Who told you I wanted to be saved?" I snapped, trying to sit up. I wasn't that easy with ropes around most of my body. "If you want to make yourself useful," I suggested, looking down at the ropes.

"_Diffindo_," Harry muttered, and the ropes fell away. I shrugged off the pieces and stood.

"Mr. Logan," Hermione said, shaking her head. "You do _not_ want to be captured by Bellatrix or any other Death Eaters. They —"

"I remember what she did to you," I told her, trying not to sound too gruff. "I was there, you know. But I got a score to settle with Snake-Boy, now."

Ron was looking at the fireplace. "Uh, won't Snape be coming back here any minute with more Death Eaters?"

"Hang on a minute, Ron," Harry said, curtly. "Look Logan — this isn't really your fight. You not a wizard, you don't know what's at stake here —"

"I think I do, kid," I cut over him. "You've got an unkillable wizard with his head lopped off, whose lackeys are trying to put him together again. Meanwhile, _you_ kids are flailing around trying to find his other Horcruxes — how many d'you think of them are left, anyway?"

"We think two more," Hermione spoke up. "One may be an artifact of Rowena Ravenclaw — possibly her diadem. The other might be You-Know-Who's snake, Nagini."

"Is it time to leave yet?" Ron asked, looking around anxiously.

"Yeah," I said. I pointed at the fireplace. "I'm going to Riddle Mansion to find Snake-Boy."

"I can't let you do that," Harry said, adamantly.

I crossed my arms over my chest and gave him a sardonic look. "And just how are you gonna stop me, kid?"

Harry was trying to stare me down (either that, or he was wondering how to answer my question). He was taller than I was, something I hadn't really paid attention to until this moment, but he was thin and a bit scrawny; he wasn't all that threatening, really. He suddenly brought up his wand, pointed it at my chest, and said, "_Stupefy_!" The bolt slammed into my chest.

"Ouch," I said. I gave the kid a stern look. "Don't do that again, okay?"

"Oh," Hermione squeaked. "You're immune to the Stunning Spell!"

"Well _we're_ not," Ron spoke up again. "We need to get out of here before Snape comes back!"

"We're not even sure where he went, Ron," Hermione told him. "He said something when he fell into the flames — the Floo must have sent him somewhere unexpected. We're lucky he did, too! If he hadn't spoken the flames wouldn't have taken him anywhere."

I'd taken a chance booting Snape into the flames; at least I'd hoped it would burn him. "So look," I said. "We're wasting time arguing about this. I'm goin' through and I'm gonna take out Snake-Boy and anyone else that's there on the other end. Meanwhile, you three go and find the rest of them Horcruxes. I figure that way we can break up Voldie's forces enough to set them back a ways, if not destroy them entirely."

"It may be impossible for anyone except the Chosen One to kill Voldemort," Harry said, looking strained and tense. He seemed quite sincere.

"Maybe, kid," I told him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "But even if I don't kill him, I can soften him up for you some. Besides, it don't look like I'm going home any time soon — I may as well give you a hand while I'm here."

Harry nodded slowly. He walked over and picked up the silver-gray cloak that he'd been wearing earlier, the one that had made him invisible. "I can let you borrow this," he said, handing it to me. "It will make you completely invisible while you're wearing it."

I examined the cloak. Though it seemed large enough to easily cover me, it was light, almost insubstantial, like holding woven water. It _might_ work for me, assuming I could avoid being noticed when the fireplace at my destination suddenly flared up and _nobody stepped out of it_. "Thanks, I guess," I said. "But don't you think they'll notice —"

"Harry can leave the Floo Damper open." Hermione suggested. She pointed her wad at the fireplace and spoke a few words. After a moment a disembodied voice said, "Snape residence" and Hermione turned back to me.

"If you arrive and you're discovered, you can step back into the flames and come back here. We'll be ready to turn off the Floo Damper if you do. We can wait until you come back —"

"I'm not coming back here," I said, firmly. "And you three aren't waiting for me. You need to leave here as soon as I'm gone — go and find that Ravenclaw Hocrux, that d-diadem, or whatever you called it. I'll find you afterwards if I can."

Harry looked at the other two kids, and after a few moments all three of them nodded, as if in mutual consent. Harry offered me his hand. "Good luck," he said. "I'll find you — I'll find you afterwards, to get my Cloak back."

"I'll bring it back to you, if I can," I agreed.

Ron extended his hand as well. "Good luck, Mr. Logan," he said, his face all seriousness. I nodded, my expression equally solemn.

I turned to Hermione, my hand extended, but she stepped past it, hugging me tightly. I could feel the anxiety and fear in her. "Please don't get killed," she whispered in my ear, though she seemed already resigned that was what was going to happen to me.

"I don't plan on it," I told her, hoping the confidence I was putting into my voice would give her hope. But she might be right — I was walking into a veritable lion's den of wizards.

But they'd probably never fought a wolverine before.

I turned to the fireplace. "Open that damper," I said, grabbing a pinch of the powder I'd seen Bellatrix use, earlier. Harry reached down, turning the lever, then gave me a nod.

I threw the powder into the fire, watching as the green flames swirled up, bathing the room in flickering green light. I threw Potter's cloak over myself. "Riddle Mansion!" I said as I stepped into the fire, and the room behind me disappeared in a burst of spinning green flames.

=ooo=

I wanted to pop my claws as I sped past the few grates I saw even before I reached my destination, but I controlled myself. I didn't know what would happen if my adamantium claws ripped something and broke it while traveling through this crazy fireplace subway.

The final grate approached, and I felt myself inexorably drawn toward it, unlike the others. I tensed, expecting to find a room full of Death Eaters just waiting for something to come through the fireplace. A feral grin came unbidden to my lips; I was looking forward to mixing it up without having to worry about who was a friend and who wasn't. _Anyone_ at the destination I was going to was going to be an enemy.

I stepped into the room, halfway out from under the cloak before I realized there was nobody there. I looked around quickly, taking a few sniffs to see if anyone was about. But it was my ears that alerted me this time, the heavy footsteps of someone large approaching the room. I slipped Potter's cloak back over me and moved to a corner of the room.

A large, burly man with twisted features stepped into the room, looking around. He made a sniffing sound, then leaned out of the room to yell, "Oi! Did someone just Floo in? I thought I heard something!"

There was no answer. The man looked around the room again, his eyes passing over me more than once as I remained absolutely still, hardly even breathing. Finally he shook his head and walked out of the room.

I followed him.

This place, wherever it was, was thick with dust and decay. The smells stayed with me as I followed the twisted-faced man back to another room, where he rejoined two other men: a large blond and a thin-faced, dark-haired man with a thin mustache and goatee.

"Was it Snape?" the large blond asked. Twisted Feature Guy shook his head and dropped into a nearby chair. I moved silently to a position near them but out of the way of any sudden movements they might make toward the door.

"What the hell's his problem?" Thin-Faced Guy muttered. "We can't do a thing until he gets the Dark Lord fixed up. And Lestrange isn't helping things, either — she's been acting dodgy since Snape got her arm back together."

"I'm starting to wonder about Snape," the large blond said, leaning forward to speak softly. "He's not trying hard enough to put the Dark Lord right again."

"It's not like you could do it faster, Rowle — or at all," Thin-Face sneered.

Rowle scowled at that. "At least _I'm_ more loyal than Snape seems to be!"

"Snape is performing his duties adequately," Twisted-Face said, dully. "And we have the Carrows in place to watch him, in case he falters. When the Dark Lord is restored he will visit Hogwarts itself, to encourage his loyal followers and to convince all other to join him."

Voldie was going to Hogwarts? I'd been told Hogwarts was a school for wizards, that things had changed there and it was now under his control and being run by Snape, the new Headmaster. But if I had anything to say about it Voldie would never leave this place.

The three men had fallen silent. I listened but couldn't hear anything else going on inside the house — they must have magic keeping sounds from traveling far. But smells weren't restricted, and I could smell Bellatrix easily enough. If I was right, she'd be wherever Voldie was.

It was about time to go exploring. I edged slowly toward the doorway, glad that Twisted Face had left the door open. I froze, however, as fast-moving footsteps approached from the other side.

Bellatrix stepped into the room, looking at the three men with an expression of bored contempt. "Any word from Snape?" she snapped.

"You were the last one with him," Rowle, the big blond muttered without looking up at her. "Seems like he'd contact you before he would us."

Bellatrix's lips twisted in anger at the insult but she merely said, "When he arrives bring him to the master's room straightaway." She turned and walked away. I followed her.

Bellatrix stopped in front of a pair of double doors; the hesitation she showed indicated that the room must be important. She pushed the doors open, they began closing automatically after she stepped through — I was barely able to squeeze between them as they shut. I moved off to one side, staying close to the wall, and took stock of this new location.

The stink of decay was heavy in this room. It had been some kind of dining area, based on the chandeliers in the ceiling and the expensive wood paneling, but now was dusty from disuse and neglect. The floor was wood as well, but was dull and scratched.

Then I saw the body on the table, and knew I'd hit paydirt.

It was Voldemort's body, that much was obvious; I could tell his scent by now over the other odors permeating the room. It wasn't moving, and I could tell under the sheet covering it that it was headless.

What was odd was that Bellatrix wasn't standing over it, but was hovering over another table next to it, a table with another body on it, standing such that I couldn't tell who it was. I moved slowly, changing my position until I could finally see who it was. A growl of rage nearly escaped me as I saw what they had done.

Voldemort's head was on the abdomen of the person lying on the table. I could see tentacles stretching out from beneath Snake-Boy's neck; they had attached themselves to the person lying there. Bellatrix was spooning mouthfuls of some type of soupy mixture into the person's mouth — the mouth opened and closed automatically, as if the person had no choice but to eat. Unbidden, my claws were slowly extending through my skin. My goal in coming here had been to find Voldemort's body and head and carve them up into sushi, hoping that these — these Death Eaters would not be able to reassemble him before Potter and his friends were able to find and destroy the rest of the Horcruxes.

But once I'd seen the face of the person lying on the table I knew I couldn't take the chance that whacking his head off her stomach would keep her alive. Her long red hair marked her as a Weasley — this must be the Weasley's daughter, Ginny.

How the hell was I going to save her from _this_?


End file.
